The Adventures of Ace “Bonehead” Rimmer
by robster72
Summary: Chapter Fourteen submitted. Follows what happens to Rimmer when he takes on the mantle of the great and noble “Ace” Rimmer and completely wrecks it. All reviews welcome!
1. Ace's first mission

Red Dwarf characters owned by Rob Grant and Doug Naylor.

With thanks to Cmar for beta reading this for me!

Takes place just after Season VII – Stoke me a Clipper. Follows what happens to Rimmer when he takes on the mantle of the great and noble "Ace" Rimmer and completely wrecks it.

**Chapter One – The Adventures of Ace "Bonehead" Rimmer**

Rimmer craned his neck behind him until the Starbug, his home for several years, disappeared and the lights on it were lost in the sea of stars surrounding him. He had been longing to leave for years and now he had he felt slightly odd. No, odd was the wrong word.

He had a strange tingling in his stomach and his nose.

What was it?

Loss?

Heartache?

No. He could smell again! The smell of curries that had for so long seared his hologramatic nasal passages had gone.

Jeez!

In space nothing can beat the speed of light. The Wildfire ship therefore got the equivalent of a galactic speeding ticket as it jumped dimensions. Or at least it would have done if anything could have caught it.

The stomach-lurching dimension jump warped him into another sector of space. The honeyed tones of the ship's computer interrupted his queasiness.

"Ace, I'm receiving several reports of wars we can assist with. The evil Ptashi are attacking the good Gwelomites."

Rimmer looked down at the planet beneath them. Even from thousands of miles in orbit he could see the orange sparks and puffs of citywide destruction. Small vapor trails, tooth-floss thin, some ending in minute sparks like fireflies dotted the atmosphere beneath him as the planet's army vainly tried to defend against the huge attack.

"The Ptashi don't look like they need any assistance, they look like they are winning fine without me!"

"No, no, you don't understand, the evil Ptashi Gelf Empire is consolidating its grip on this sector. I don't want you to help _them_!"

"But they're winning?" said Rimmer, squinting out of the ship as a huge grey Ptashi warship dove down towards the planet with the same grace as a brick. As it fell, firing all the time, it dropped thousands of little globes, each containing a hundred horribly clawed and beweaponed Ptashi warriors. "They are quite patently, look, you can see from here! Why would I want to help the losers?"

"But they're the evil slave-taking Empire!"

"Marvelous! Can we loot the place afterwards when they're all gone?"

"I don't have time to talk about right and wrong; suffice it to say that as Ace Rimmer you help the oppressed, the needy, and the good!"

"Yes, yes, I'd like to add a small bit in about helping myself. Also this is my first mission, computer, have you anything slightly easier?"

"Some tornadoes have swept through the Martian colony of Betamax and …"

"A teensy bit easier?"

"We have reports of a hostage situation on the Ganymede colony of Atari that…"

"A hostage situation?"

"Yes, involving thirty armed members of the BTZBB 'Bring the ZX Spectrum back' brigade."

"Sounds marvelous, exchanging gunfire and what not." He rubbed his hands together. "Anything not involving physical peril?"

"A shoplifter in the Mimas branch of Walmart? She's 103."

"Yes indeedy, wheel her round, computer!" Rimmer thought for a moment. "Does she have a walking stick?"

"She has a zimmer frame."

"They can be a bit nasty if she drives her wheel over my foot." Rimmer thought for a bit. "Any beautiful women in peril? You know the type of thing, broken nail, full-fat pint of milk in the fridge?"

"The super model Natalya Kaplinska." A picture of a beautiful blonde girl who seemed to be wearing clothes several sizes too small for her filled the screen in front of him.

"This looks more like my kind of mission! What's her problem, computer?"

"She is being held hostage by a robotic David Bowie at the Ziggy Stardust memorial theme park on Pluto."

"Yes, yes, yes, sounds wonderful fighting robots, just what I'm good at! Anything slightly lower down the scale?"

"All the other Aces would have leapt at the chance to…"

"Yes, yes, I'm sure they would. They also all looked like the gay centerfold for Big Boys in Boots. I'm Ace Rimmer now! Me!" He jabbed himself in the chest with his finger for emphasis and winced slightly with the light pain. "Ouch! Anyway, we are doing things my way, computer! Take me to a beach planet. With babes, free pina coladas and one of those places you can hire one of those little pedal boats."

"Certainly, Ace, the pleasure planet of Mimas Alpha is under attack by the crystalline jelly gelfs of…"

"No, no, no, you don't understand," said Ace, shaking his head at each word. He stopped when he realized his wig had fallen over his nose. He pushed it back irritably. Since when do you need to wear a rug to save the universe? "I'm Ace now, Arnold Rimmer, old iron balls, the Duke."

"Bonehead," muttered the computer.

"What was that?"

"Nothing, nothing. So you want somewhere safe to go to?"

"Yes."

"Not under attack?"

"No!"

"You just sit back, Ace, I've got just the place for you."

"Marvelous! You couldn't just play a bit of my lift music classic collection while we fly?"

"Ace normally liked to read the mission briefings, run a full systems diagnostic, check his…"

"Yes, yes, yes! Also the original Ace caught the business end of a neutron tank in dimension 165, whatever that is; I won't go the same way!"

"Unlikely."

"Good."

"He had already beaten off half the Tkjaldkj Gelf army before he got caught by the tank, and saved the Mimas colony of Vic20 before that. You couldn't beat a wet lettuce leaf."

"I beg your pardon?"

"I said you couldn't beat a wet lettuce leaf, and one that had already been nibbled by a herd of rabbits."

"Rabbits don't herd, they…" Rimmer thought.

"They what?"

"I don't know! Gather, flock! What's a herd, I mean a group of rabbits called?"

"That is besides the point. You are not half the man he was. In fact if we are talking fractions, if you were to take one thousandth of him you wouldn't even equal a hundredth of that!"

"I'm a better man than he ever was! I bet he couldn't whistle Reggie Wilson's tango treats?"

"No."

"There, told you."

"He wouldn't want to. You are nothing like as good as…"

"I am! I am!" Then Rimmer gave one of his little nasally laughs. "I know what you're trying to do?"

"What?"

"It's reverse psychology, isn't it?"

"What is?" asked the computer, trying to sound innocent.

"All this trying to make me seem bad stuff. It won't work, I am indefat, indisputt, indi…" He thought for a moment. "What's that word to describe me?"

"Moron?"

"No."

"Knucklehead?"

"You're not helping! Whatever the word is, I am it!"

Space around the Wildfire seemed to warp again as the hugely powerful drives sent it on its way.

Rimmer's wig ended up halfway down his chest.

"Warn me next time! I nearly swallowed my own teeth!"

"Sorry Ace, we are here. This is the pleasure planet of Skegness Minor. The year is 2390. We are currently cruising in at a height of 30,000 feet. If you look to your right you can see the huge golden beaches that stretch for thousands of miles in the length and breadth of this planet's equator."

"And it's not due for an invasion?"

"Not as such, no."

"Nor some horrible natural disaster probably involving winds fiercer than Lister after curry night?"

"No."

"Marvelous, land over there next to that pleasure dome, can you, computer; I'll just stretch my legs! Actually, is that some sunbathing women? I'll have to try out the old Ace charm on them!"

The landing jets sent clouds of steam and sand erupting from the beach as it landed.

Rimmer straightened his wig and pressed the button to release the cockpit. A ladder elongated down and he clambered down towards the golden sand. Several scantily clad women surrounded his ship and gasped when they saw the handsome young pilot.

He gave a roguish smile to the adoring crowd and whispered to his ship. "Be back in a couple of hours, Wildfire, I'm going to get myself acquainted with these lovelies."

The ship leapt into the air behind him and Rimmer started strolling nonchalantly towards them. He then rather spoilt this by tripping up over his shoelace and sending his wig onto a passing beach crab that immediately started scuttling for the sea as it got covered by his hair piece. The women squealed as this rat-like thing made a bid for freedom with Rimmer capering after it like a deranged gazelle.

He leapt on it before it scurried into the sea and recovered his wig. He then gave an un-heroic squeal as it attacked his nipple with its pincer.

There was some un-Ace-like swearing as he danced and span around trying to remove the crab. He hurled it into the sea where it raised two pincers to give him two V signs before it sank beneath the waves with a gurgle.

Curiously, the women had all run off at this.

Strange lot.

Rimmer sighed to himself; maybe it wasn't quite this easy. Anyway, he was here now, he might as well enjoy himself!

He felt in his pocket and was surprised to find a Neutron card. Basically no credit limit at all! He could buy the planet if he wanted to (not that he wanted to, just by looking around he could tell it had a damp problem, the local wildlife was rude and aggressive and they hadn't even added a mock Tudor conservatory).

He might as well start with an ice cream though. Rimmer strolled over to a handy ice cream van just past the souvenir stand. Even though the whole planet was just a giant beach with several floating pleasure cities, the souvenir stand was still covered in cheap plastic models of the Eiffel Tower and the Taj Mahal. In this century the Eiffel Tower had now been converted to a supporting strut in the 'Paris experience' theme park and was full of tables and waiters studiously ignoring the hundreds of tourists milling around.

He gave a rakish smile to the ice cream sales robot and ordered a rocket shaped ice lolly.

He then nearly dropped it down his front, as the sea in front of him seemed to boil as thousands of giant angry crustaceans started to invade the resort, sending thousands of screaming holidaymakers fleeing for their lives.


	2. A bad case of crustaceans

Takes place just after Season VII – Stoke me a Clipper. Follows what happens to Rimmer when he takes on the mantle of the great and noble "Ace" Rimmer and completely wrecks it. With thanks to Cmar for beta reading this for me! 

Also thanks to Cmar, Sunrise over the Tango factory, Radar-fox, Tom from Down Under and E.Nagrom for the reviews so far! All very much appreciated! All reviews welcome

**Chapter Two – The Adventures of Ace "Bonehead" Rimmer**

It has been rather unfairly stated before that Arnold Rimmer was useless at everything.

This is wrong.

Indeed his school report from when he was aged 12 and seven eighths had such words as incredibly, amazingly and phenomenally. Sadly, it did also include the word useless no less than 78 times, which was quite impressive when you consider he only did seven subjects and there were only 100 words in his report.

However, Rimmer could run.

It was the one subject that did not include the word useless in it. Years of practice of running from his brothers would do that. Mainly because his brothers were at heart scientists. They were always wanting to try out various experiments on Arnold.

How far could he bounce? How long could he hold his breath underwater? How many wasps would he attract if he was covered in jam? All these were meticulously researched, sometimes several times a day.

Anyway, back to the story. When Rimmer saw the sea boil and various huge claws and eye stalks emerge, with the subsequent horrible clicking sounds of their mandibles, he did not do what a lot of the other people did.

"Gosh honey, let's get a picture of you with that huge man eating crab! That's it, put your arm round its mandible, dear. Darling, I can't get you in the picture if you keep getting cut in half by its pincers."

Rimmer ran.

If this were a film it would be done in slo-mo with suitably heroic music. It's not, so you'll have to make do with the "Benny Hill" theme tune. Sorry, it's the only one I have on i-tunes at the moment.

"Excuse me! Coming through! Get that baby buggy out the way! Thanks, old lady, I'll take that walking stick, don't get up!"

Rimmer ran through the crowd, using the walking stick to trip people up in front of him, like the hero he wasn't. Behind him was the horrible chittering sound of the angry crustaceans.

Gibbering with panic, Rimmer found a queue of four year old school children waiting patiently to climb into the nearest star ship as the teachers took the register.

He looked behind him and could see the huge man eating crabs scuttling sideways towards them.

"Kids!" said Rimmer brightly. "Who's for a game of hide and go seek?"

"Yay! Hide and go seek! Yay!"

As the little children scattered to the four winds, the teachers running after their little charges, Rimmer scuttled on board himself. The only difference between him and a man-eating crab at the moment was his gold jacket.

He ran to the control deck of the ship. The pilots had run off to try and find the children.

He sat down and just stared at the controls. The Wildfire ship had a computer to do the piloting for him; this was not that advanced so it had a mass of buttons and dials, all of which meant nothing to Rimmer.

When he had been given his station on Starbug by the others it had taken him four months before he realized it was a coffee machine. Although to be fair, he could now order a café latte with extra sugar with a speed that is truly mind boggling.

Attitude control?

What the hell is that? thought Rimmer. I'm getting a bad attitude just reading this stuff!

Rimmer quickly skimmed through the other controls. None of them meant anything to him. He just closed his eyes and jabbed his hand on the controls.

There was a throaty coughing sound as the engines caught and the ship took to the air. It would be nice to add a phrase in like 'it took to the heavens like a silver dart' and possibly, if I was feeling pretentious, add something in about Prometheus stealing fire. Sadly, I can't. It took to the air like a drunken old fat woman at her sixtieth birthday party, crashing into everything that was nailed down and making lecherous advances to everything that wasn't.

Rimmer staggered as the craft side-windered to the right and he fell on to some more controls. This caused the craft to skim over the sea at a height of about 4 foot which lightly grilled about 5,000 angry crustaceans. It then landed with a huge thump in the ocean, causing a tidal wave at just the right height to sweep all the other irritated crabs back into the sea where they came from and leaving the humans alone.

It should be said, if it hasn't been mentioned before, that it was a really nice space ship. It was a beautiful silver colour that mirrored everything around it (in a way designed to give headaches to the special effects staff). It had fins, it had rocket engines, it could go from 0 to 60,000 mph in just under 10 seconds. Its designers had made sure it could survive in the harsh conditions of space, from the freezing depths of vacuum to the incredible heat of an atmospheric re-entry. It was in short a space ship, with the operative word being space.

Curiously, they hadn't thought that anyone would try and land the thing in an ocean, and especially one full of lightly boiled heavily annoyed sea life. The fools!

This lack of foresight made Rimmer go an interesting series of colours that would quite rival a rainbow for variety. He then worked his way through all the swear words he knew. Sadly, a lifetime of reading Asterix and Tin Tin books meant the only ones he knew were "By Toutatis!" and "Blistering barnacles!" Although why barnacles would be blistered he did not know.

The ship then sank rather slowly towards the bottom of the ocean floor. He tried to start the engines again but there was a rather forlorn pooting sound and a mass of bubbles like Lister in a bath.

Rimmer could see several dozen annoyed looking crabs and shrimps glaring at him through the portholes. The ship started to settle underwater; it was extremely deep here. Sounds like gunshots echoed through the ship as the water pressure on the hull made various rivets explode out. The glass in front of Rimmer started to gently crack with the pressure and water seeped in. At this depth it was like a high powered hose and it pinned him to the door like a golden butterfly. The water interfered slightly with his hard light light bee and blue lightning crackled harmlessly over his body. He jabbed the door button with one hand and fell back into the corridor.

One of the things Rimmer was good at (I hate all this negativity about people, I mean even Judas, Rimmer's middle name, was probably a good cook) was swimming. He had a Bronze Swimmer's certificate and a Silver Swimmer's certificate, so when the corridor started filling with water he felt curiously confident. Also one of the many advantages of being a hologram, and dead was, apart from confusing sales staff… "Can I speak to Arnold Rimmer, deceased, please?"

"Speaking."

"It says you are deceased, sir, should I take you off our mailing list?"

"No, that's fine thanks, I like using the freepost return envelope and putting a brick in it."

Anyway, an advantage to being a hologram was the fact you don't have to breathe whether underwater or over it. One of his many skills before he had poked his head out of the door when he heard a noise (it was a nuclear wind he had heard and that's what killed him, that's why I never open the door when I hear a noise e.g. angry neighbours, door bells, police sirens, swat teams, television crews) was the ability to give a world-weary sigh and automatically depress anyone in listening distance. Try and give a world-weary sigh without breathing? Difficult, isn't it?

Anyway, Rimmer started swimming down the rapidly filling corridor, his wig attached to the top of his head like a particularly ill jellyfish. He jabbed the air lock button with his hand and swam into the air lock (now technically a water lock). The door sealed with a hissing sound behind him.

The space ship was settling on the ocean floor now with a horrible groaning sound. It sounded like Lister's stomach after one of his 12 course curry meals.

The door opened and Rimmer nearly fell back in shock. There in front of him were thousand of huge man eating crustaceans, and leading them was the crab that had run off with his wig before.


	3. Sun, sand and angry sea life

Takes place just after Season VII – Stoke me a Clipper. Follows what happens to Rimmer when he takes on the mantle of the great and noble "Ace" Rimmer and completely wrecks it. With thanks to Cmar for beta reading this for me! 

Also thanks to Cmar, Sunrise over the Tango factory, Radar-fox, Tom from Down Under and E.Nagrom for the reviews so far! All very much appreciated! All reviews welcome

**Chapter Three – The Adventures of Ace "Bonehead" Rimmer**

Rimmer squared his jaw. This is not a mathematical phrase but it does explain why great mathematicians never make great novelists. "Boy plus girl equals romance minus the sum of the children they had divided by the parents-in-law take the cosine of the mortgage they have and add one trip to the supermarket each week. Equals Y?"

Geologists' books are far more interesting (not wishing to blow my own trumpet but as there is nobody else about to…) "Sod the explosions and the romance, did you see the marvellous example of the metamorphic gneiss rock they were standing on? If that stupid rock-jawed hero blows another chunk out of that lovely anti-cline I'll get really angry!"

Cooks are probably better. "Add a little dash of romance, not too much, we don't want to put off the men. Add a small sprinkling of explosions and one of those cars with GXi in the title (this works for all cars apart from, curiously, the Lada)."

Anyway, I digress. (Don't worry, I'm taking the pills for it.) Rimmer saw the horde that was facing him and did what any sensible hero who was not dead would do, he immediately closed the door. By the way, the space ship was resting on the Abyssal plane, which was part of a metamorphic pre-Cambrian sequence of rocks. Where have my readers gone?

Behind him he could hear a clanging sound as the angry crustaceans started to hammer their way in. The power to the space ship died as water flooded the electricity generators. The corridor lights flickered and died and for a few seconds Rimmer was swimming in pitch black. I would say his heart was in his mouth but that is an anatomical impossibility. I resolve to be more realistic with my metaphors from now on.

Fear curdled in his stomach like that bowl of custard you left in the fridge for three weeks that seems to be dissolving your spoon (how's that for realism?) The emergency power flickered on and the underwater corridor was bathed in a weak orange glow. There, in front of him, was the shelled fiend of a huge underwater crab. It was snapping its claws together like a really big angry crab, which is a bit of luck since that is what it was.

Rimmer opened the side door to a small room that had still not been flooded. He shot into the room and the door shut behind him with a slamming sound like the gates of doom.

The whole ship was creaking and cracking as the pressure of thousands of tonnes of sea water per square inch was crushing the hull. To make matters worse he could see indentations form in the metal door as the crab tried to cut its way in.

Think! You're Ace Rimmer! What would he do? Rimmer thought. I mean - me do?

Probably come up with some witty, vaguely sexual rejoinder about "A bad case of crabs!" And then go off and have rampant rumpy pumpy with some food covered lovely.

Yes, but you're not Ace, an annoying little voice said in the back of his mind. Do I really want to be an annoying rugby-playing chump though? One of those blokes who probably sing drinking songs really loudly and probably slaps other men on the back in a manly way?

This is all very fascinating, said another voice. BUT WE ARE ABOUT TO BE CHOPPED INTO PIECES LIKE A GIANT SALAMI! This voice then proceeded to skip about inside Rimmer's brain and was last seen trying to hide behind some convenient hologrammatic ear wax.

"I have two options," he muttered to himself. "One, stick my fingers in my ears, close my eyes and sing La! La! This is not happening! until it all goes away, or two, find someway of escaping."

"I'm with number one," said the voice hiding behind his ear wax.

"Me too!" said another, even more cowardly voice, that was currently halfway up a nostril hair.

His bravery voice, which had left him aged three when a particularly aggressive snail attacked him, had an out of office reply. "Rimmer's bravery is not in at the moment. If you'd like to leave a message after the tone, someone will get back to you. If they're brave enough."

Water started pouring in through the light fitting and the ceiling started bulging in a horrible rather crab-like way.

Rimmer ignored the voices in his head.

"The answer has to be around here!" He looked at where he was.

"It's a room." Right, good start. Start with the basics.

"It has a chair. A nice red one with those comfy arm rests." Nice. Observant. Good. A teensy bit more speed next time please, and only point out something useful!

"What's that sign say? Evit Kapsulo. The one right next to that hatch? What on Io is that?"

"Errr, excuse me?" said a little annoying voice in the back of his head. It was that little voice that always makes a helpful comment after you've done something stupid but remains annoyingly quiet beforehand. For example, when you do a 'reply to all' to a message instead of to a sender; normally just after you have made a witty but insulting comment about the boss.

"What? What?" said Rimmer to himself.

"I think you'll find it's Esperanto."

"I know Esperanto!" said Rimmer triumphantly. "Does that mean Guatemalan peach halves?"

"Think again, Einstein!" said the annoyingly chirpy voice. "It means Escape Capsule!"

Rimmer's feet did an uncalled for jig whilst his hands were far more practical and jabbed the button to open the capsule. There was a hissing sound as the hatch slid open. Rimmer leapt through it just as a giant crab fell through the ceiling in a huge thunderous torrent of water.

The door hissed shut behind him.

He could hear the angry clicking sound of the giant crab behind him. Right, there were some controls here. One of these buttons must do something.

He pressed a button and a cappuccino, extra sugar, came out of the drinks machine in front of him.

"That coffee will help me concentrate!" he said and looked at the other buttons. He pressed another button and some music tinkled out of the speakers. "A bit of mood music. Nice. Now, how to escape this thing."

"Try the button marked escape, moron?" said the annoying little voice.

Rimmer jabbed it with his finger and the capsule left the space ship in a huge mass of bubbles. Underneath Rimmer, the sea floor seemed to be moving. He realised there was line after line of thousands upon thousands of giant crustaceans, all heading towards the beach.

The ship bobbed to the surface of the ocean like an apple in a barrel and the tide handily swept it onto the beach. Rimmer levered open the hatch and staggered out.

There was a small crowd of people on the beach.

"Hurray!" he heard someone shout.

"The hero returns!" someone else said.

"What a guy!" said a small fat man to him.

One of the women grasped his hand and shook it vigorously. "You've saved our planet, you've saved our beach, and most importantly you've saved our souvenir stand."

"Yes, yes, all in a day's work for a hero," said Rimmer, looking anxiously over his shoulder. He then mimed a walking action with his fingers. "Well, I'd best be toddling. Toodle ooh!"

"You killed all the giant man eating crabs then?"

"Oh yes," said Rimmer, sidling up the beach towards where his Wildfire spaceship was just landing in a plume of sand.

"What, all of them?"

"Oh yes, I'm quite sure I got all of them." He started to walk a bit faster towards his space ship.

Behind Rimmer the sea boiled. Well, that is not exactly true. It didn't boil per se, it sort of bubbled. More like a Jacuzzi really, but saying the sea Jacuzzied doesn't have quite the same ring to it. Thousands of huge man-eating crabs came to the surface, claws snapping horribly. If you see them in a Jacuzzi I would ask for your money back.

"Well, one or two might have escaped," said Rimmer, his knees nearly under his chin as he started running.

"One or two?" The woman who had thanked him was running by his side.

"Thousand." Rimmer glanced at the sea. "Hundreds of thousands, possibly million?"

Rimmer ran up the ladder to his cockpit and fell gratefully into his seat.

"Help, let me in!" wailed the woman left behind.

"Sorry, no room!" said Rimmer.

"It's a two man craft!"

"Yes, well, I've got my rucksack on the other seat. Good luck with the crab problem! Bye!"

The sound of her wails died down as the glass cockpit shushed down. "Right, computer, if you wouldn't mind getting me out of here, fun though this trip has been?"

"You didn't save them then?"

"Well, I might have brought them a bit of time?"

"You brought an ice cream, didn't you?"

"How dare you suggest such a thing!"

"Didn't you?"

"No, it was a lolly. One of those nice red and green rocket lollies actually. Would you mind taking off like now-ish?" A line of crabs scuttled up the beach. The last of the space ships that were rescuing people from this beleaguered planet took off behind him.

This was one of those spaceships that when they said 'could be operated by a three year old' was actually right. It had two big buttons in a bright shiny red plastic, one saying "Start!" and one saying "Stop!" It also had a little label saying -

"The Leapster Cross Dimension Space Craft system is the way your modern HERO Test Pilot loves to travel! With one interactive system and the Leapster Learning Library, Test Pilots can PLAY in action-packed alternate dimensions, DESTROY galaxy-wide evil Empires, MEET gorgeous partners of your choice (same sex, hermaphrodite and slug-beings our speciality!), and WATCH interactive videos in glorious TECHNICOLOR on how to save the galaxy! Play and learn essential skills that include: reading, colouring in, aikido self defence, and much more! Colour may vary to that on the box. Batteries and slug-beings not included."

Rimmer looked at the woman trying to scramble into his space ship and paused. She had left it too late to run. If he didn't let her in she would be chopped to pieces.

Rimmer's hand hovered over the start button.


	4. The joys of marmite

Takes place just after Season VII – Stoke me a Clipper. Follows what happens to Rimmer when he takes on the mantle of the great and noble "Ace" Rimmer and completely wrecks it. With thanks to Cmar for beta reading this for me! 

Also thanks to Cmar, Sunrise over the Tango factory, Radar-fox, Tom from Down Under and E.Nagrom for the reviews so far! All very much appreciated! All reviews welcome

**Chapter Four – The Adventures of Ace "Bonehead" Rimmer**

This was one of those pivotal moments in time. Most people only recognise them afterwards, like when they wake up in hospital and think, "Stepping out in front of that bus was a bad idea." Normally the first thing they see is their brother or sister eating all their grapes and saying, "Well, you can't eat them in your state, can you! I'm helping you out!" On the subject of hospitals (well, I am, I don't know about you?) it is a bit of luck alternate medicine has never found its way into Accident and Emergency wards.

"He's got a broken leg, Doctor."

"This is serious, Nurse! Get me 20cc of St John's Wort, place three red crystals around him and put some Mozart on in the background."

"He's still got a broken leg."

"You'll have to dance naked round the bed at full moon."

"How will that help his broken leg?"

"Not for him, for me!"

If I start wandering off on a tangent yell something, or better still go on three paragraphs where there is a lovely sentence where I say the sun set like a giant Edam. It was difficult to compare dairy products and the sun in one sentence but I managed it. Anyway this next bit is a little bit romantic. If you don't like romance then I suggest you forward to the cheese bit.

Rimmer's hand hovered over the start button and then went to the hatch switch. The hatch hissed open and the girl scrabbled in. She was one of those beautiful girls that when authors describe them it shows they should get out more and stop playing computer games. She was wearing tight leather boots, a short black dress and a white top that barely contained her ample bosom.

"Steaj fdklaj kjfld." Rimmer tried to say sit down there, but by the time the words reached his mouth his libido got in the way. For those of you too young to know, a Libido is a bit like a Zebra with horns.

"Thanks, I'll sit down here." She moved his rucksack containing his few belongings onto the floor.

The hatch hissed shut and the ship roared off into the sky. The sunset behind the ship was like a giant Edam colouring the sky in all the colours of the delicatessen counter.

"I told them not to do it, you know."

"Told them what?" asked Rimmer. He was not used to sitting this close to a beautiful woman and he was trying to look at her in a not looking at her sort of way.

"The local sea food business has been genetically engineering crabs for years to get them bigger. I knew it would come back and pinch us on the…"

"Yes, well, these things happen," said Rimmer quickly. "My name's Rimmer, Arnold I mean, Ace rather."

She was silent.

"What's yours?"

"What's my what?"

"Name? I assume you have one? Or did your parents not bother with a name for you, the same as they didn't bother buying you any more clothes after you were ten?"

"Cindy, of course. And what's that crack about clothes?"

"Well, they are so tight, have you tried getting any your size? I mean my god, how do you breathe?"

"Fashion advice from a man wearing a gold jacket?"

"Where to next, Ace? Somewhere warm and safe with no danger?"

Rimmer's voice deepened. "Don't be silly, computer. I'm Ace! I live for adventure and really dangerous things and creatures with teeth like thith!" he said and then realised he was doing the mouth movement with it. He gave Cindy a watery smile.

"Well, last time you said you wanted somewhere safe and not under attack."

"Don't be silly, computer." He tried to smile at Cindy again but she was ignoring him as she looked out the cockpit. He got his mouth up close to the computer and whispered, "I'm trying to impress Cindy! Take me somewhere safe, romantic and not dangerous at all!"

The computer's voice boomed out. "If you want to impress Cindy, Ace, the pleasure planet of …"

"Shut up! Shut up!"

She fixed him a smouldering look, and pushed her blonde locks out of her eyes. "Are you trying to seduce me again, Ace?"

Rimmer's voice went slightly falsetto. "Me! No! Wouldn't dream of it!"

She pouted at him. "Why not?" She looked at him coquettishly and said. "I've got a jar of marmite you can lick off me."

Rimmer's face grimaced. "Marmite? Errrrrr!"

"What's wrong, Ace? you loved it last time you rescued me from that planet of the spiders on Space Route 456."

"Listen, I think you have me confused with another wig-topped gold-plated moron."

Just then Rimmer decided to listen to one of the voices in his head that was currently trying to strangle his voice. "You idiot! You've got a chance here! And one of the other smeghead Aces has done all the work for you!"

Another more sensible voice said. "Yes, but marmite though?"

"Who cares! You have a chance to make love to a beautiful woman!"

"Still, it's marmite though!"

The internal battle raged…

Ten minutes later on a small planetoid with a breathable atmosphere, a small red space ship landed in a plume of dust and a figure clambered down from the cockpit.

"Sorry love," said Rimmer. "But marmite and me don't get on!"

"But Ace! I can change! I've got vegemite as well!"

"Even worse!" Rimmer flew off into the cheese shaped sunset.

"Where to next, Ace?"

"Anywhere there are fair damsels in distress, planets in peril or universes in a state of general unease."

"Really?"

"Nah. Somewhere, safe, warm and dry and where I can buy a pickled egg sandwich."

"Certainly Ace, course vectors plotted and stored."

Rimmer experienced the stomach lurching dimension jump as billions of dollarpounds of Space Corp ship tore through the barriers separating realities in search of a pickled egg sandwich.

The ship zipped through the atmosphere of the green and blue planet. In this case the green was the sea and the blue was the land mass. Well, it takes all sorts to make a universe.

Rimmer looked out of the cockpit and then at the computer suspiciously. "This planetty place we are going to?"

"Yes?" the computer said in a very innocent tone.

"It does pickled egg sandwiches, does it?"

"Famous for it."

"Famous for pickled egg sandwiches? Not famous for anything else?"

"Like what?" The computer said.

"Well, the only reason I ask is there seems to be a teensy war going on at the moment." Rimmer pulled back on the control stick of the Wildfire to take it past half a dozen wildly veering missiles. They exploded harmlessly behind him.

"Well, I thought while you were getting your sandwich you could rescue the…"

"What did I say about rescuing?" Rimmer asked in his nasal tone.

"Checking databanks." There was a moment's silence. "Nothing as far as I recall," it said sulkily.

"Indeedy. I am the Ace that does not do rescues. I mean, the last person I liberated was a marmite covered female." He shuddered at the thought. Rimmer casually took the Wildfire through a swathe of flak (this is not a swear word but you would probably swear if you were hit by it). "Where is this pickled egg sandwich you promised, computer? Is this another undomesticated poultry chase?"

"When have I ever steered you wrong?"

"When have you ever steered me right? You do realise the last planet we went to I was nearly chopped in two by some very nasty invertebrates. It's not surprising there is a planet surrounded by the coffins of a million fallen Ace's with you in charge. I mean you probably couldn't even turn left without being attacked by assassins, blown up and drowned in jelly."

"I've always survived!"

"Yes you have; your poor passengers never have. What have you got against them?"

"Nothing," she said sulkily.

"How many legs have the nasties got on this planet then?"

"Don't worry, all the nasties are on two legs on this planet."

"Joy! Why do I get the feeling I'm going to regret this? Okay, this is going to be a lightning quick mission. We land, we get the pickled egg sandwich, and we get the smeg out of there. Any questions?"

"What about the…"

"Good, let's go, take her down computer! I mean what can possibly go wrong?"


	5. Pickled egg sandwich Part One

Takes place just after Season VII – Stoke me a Clipper. Follows what happens to Rimmer when he takes on the mantle of the great and noble "Ace" Rimmer and completely wrecks it. With thanks to Cmar for beta reading this for me! 

Also thanks to Cmar, Sunrise over the Tango factory, Radar-fox, Tom from Down Under, E.Nagrom and RPQ for the reviews so far! All very much appreciated! All reviews welcome

Takes place just after Season VII – Stoke me a Clipper. Follows what happens to Rimmer when he takes on the mantle of the great and noble "Ace" Rimmer and completely wrecks it.

**Chapter Four – The Adventures of Ace "Bonehead" Rimmer**

The ship skimmed through a war zone. All around him mushroom clouds exploded and the heat and smoke of the tortured landscape was terrible to behold.

"Where's this pickled egg sandwich place then?"

"Down there."

"Where?"

"Just behind that rampaging party of evil slave traders."

Rimmer looked at the computer quizzically. "Are there good slave traders?"

"Well, some of them offer pension schemes, gradable salary, four weeks holiday a year and a health scheme."

"I think you've gotten confused with companies and slave traders."

"Same difference. Anyway, Ass - I mean Ace, are you going to stop those evil gits before you get your pickled egg sandwich?"

Rimmer sighed. "Okay, I'll give it a go. Keep the engine running though, computer, if anything goes wrong I will be back here before you can say pickled egg sandwich is off."

The Wildfire landed next to the sandwich shop. About a hundred yards away was a Quantock slaving vessel. They were busy forcing the local gelf population into it, to force them into slavery as computer programmers for the huge Macrosift Empire.

Rimmer strode up behind one of the huge Quantock enforcers. "Errm, excuse me?"

No response.

"Excuse me. I hate to bother you, I can see you're busy and all that."

The man, who was so tall Rimmer half expected to see clouds round his head, turned round to look down at Rimmer. "What choo want?"

"Oh, your English is terrible. It is 'What do you want?' or 'May I help you, sir?' Not 'What choo want?' Errrkk!" Now it may seem that the Errrkk comment at the end of that sentence didn't really fit into the rest of it. However it is the noise you would make if a huge eight-foot man lifted you up by the lapels of your jacket.

"Choo want?"

"I could hear you perfectly well on the ground." Rimmer waved a hand in front of his nose. "You really could invest in some breath mints. Anyway, I'm a hero type person and I really can't stand around, or rather be carried around, while someone is about to take people into slavery."

"What choo gonna do then?"

Rimmer had a moment of inspiration. These are rare for Rimmer, his last one was fifteen years ago when he thought of combining ketchup and bacon in a sandwich. His feet were just at the same height as the Quantock enforcer's… How to put this delicately? In essence when he kicked him there the Quantock enforcer suddenly found he was qualified for the Quantock choir sopranos.

Ace landed on the ground and rolled forward. One of the other Quantock enforcers came running towards him just as the first Quantock enforcer got to his feet and swung a huge fist at Rimmer.

This had the unfortunate (or fortunate depending on your point of view) effect of clobbering the second enforcer. This other enforcer got a little irate at this and started hitting the other one. The other two enforcers that were there felt a little left out at this and joined in the fun.

In a little under two minutes all four Quantock enforcers were comatose and being helped back onto their ship by the local gelfs they were trying to enslave.

Rimmer sauntered up to the sandwich shop. He put his mirror sunglasses on and said, "Pickled egg sandwich, please, my man. Easy on the ketchup."

He then looked at who he was talking to and realised that she was definitely not a man. That is, unless the definition of man suddenly involved long hair and large breasts. To be fair that is the case in several rock musicians.

"Did you just get rid of those slave traders, stranger?"

Rimmer lowered the sunglasses to take a look at her. "Call me Rim… Ace. So what's a girl like you doing in a nice place like this?"

"I work here." She gave him a seductive half smile. "You know, I always said I would do this to a man who would get rid of the Quantocks."

Rimmer raised an eyebrow. His imagination as to what it could be kicked in so he decided to raise two. "Does it involve a pickled egg sandwich?"

"I was thinking more of…" She grabbed him by his shiny lapels and whispered seductively into his ear.

"That doesn't sound very hygienic. I'll just stick with the pickled egg sandwich, thanks." That was when the part of his brain to do with sex dusted off an old manual and started reading it. It was one of those old fifties manuals that reverted to diagrams as soon as it got interesting. It then ended with a shot of a baby being born to put you off sex for life. "Well, actually it might be quite interesting." He thought a moment. "You are not going to do anything involving marmite, are you?"

"No."

"Thank god." Rimmer tried to give her a roguish smile. Unfortunately the last time he smiled had been when Lister had burnt his hand on the curry he was cooking and then somehow managed to pour it all onto the Cat's tartan suit. Various muscles creaked and groaned in his face until he looked like the before photo in a diarrhoea commercial.

"Waaah!"

"Sorry, I'll try that again," said Rimmer and tried to smile again. He then caught a glimpse of his strained face in the reflection of a ketchup bottle that made him jump up and lose his wig.

The girl ran off in shock.

Rimmer sighed. "I need practice, I need practice." There was the sound of jet engines behind him as the Wildfire ship landed.

The computer actually sounded vaguely impressed as he clambered in. "You actually did it then?"

"Did what?"

"Got rid of the slave traders."

"Strangely, yes, although I didn't get a pickled egg sandwich."

"Worry not, Ace old fruit pastille, I know just the place."

"Yes, before we go, is this place under attack in any way shape or form?"

"No," said the computer, sounding innocent.

"Are you crossing your fingers as you say that?"

"Of course not, I'm a computer; I don't have fingers."

"Crossing your circuits then?"

"Might be, might be not!"

"Come on then, let's go."

The Wildfire ship took off in a plume of smoke and dust and shot through the atmosphere of the planet. Once it was clear of the gravitational field of the planet the ship's hugely powerful dimension jump engines warped time and space in a way designed to give a headache to Einstein.

Below the Wildfire ship was a huge green planet. Small blue pockmarks dotted the surface showing huge lakes and seas. The poles were a brilliant white showing the vast ice fields of the planet Mindirra.

"What are we doing here then? And don't give me any malarkey about pickled egg sandwiches."

"The Emperor Constantine the 42 and a third…"

"The 42 and a third?"

"There was an accident involving a cloning machine and a calculator, I can't explain it now. Anyway, he is fighting Maxentius the Turgid and ..."

"You're making this up as you go along, aren't you?"

"Certainly not! My databanks cover practically everything that has ever, will ever, and maybe ever take place!"

"Alright, who won the FA cup in 1975?"

"Southampton against Manchester United. Bobby Stokes scored the goal."

"That's an easy one. What are the moons of Mars called?"

"Phobos and Deimos. Named after the sons of Ares, or Mars in Greek mythology."

"Alright, a tough one. If all the other Ace Rimmers were charming, dapper heroes who were a wow with the ladies, why am I a cowardly numpty with less chance of success with women than the Elephant Man's, shorter, fatter, uglier brother?"

"All Rimmers start off like you."

"I think you might be talking a teensy bit of rubbish there, computer. I've met Ace Rimmer. Twice. And both times it was less like looking in a mirror than it is possible to be."

"You have it in you to be Ace Rimmer."

"Depress me, why don't you. Anyway what are we doing here? Are we rescuing some beautiful maiden or are we getting me a pickled egg sandwich?"

"Hopefully both this time."


	6. Pickled egg sandwich Part Two

Takes place just after Season VII – Stoke me a Clipper. Follows what happens to Rimmer when he takes on the mantle of the great and noble "Ace" Rimmer and completely wrecks it. Takes place just after Season VII – Stoke me a Clipper. Follows what happens to Rimmer when he takes on the mantle of the great and noble "Ace" Rimmer and completely wrecks it. With thanks to Cmar for beta reading this for me! 

Also thanks to Cmar, Sunrise over the Tango factory, Radar-fox, Tom from Down Under, E.Nagrom and RPQ for the reviews so far! All very much appreciated! All reviews welcome.

Also apologies for being so slack with the writing. Hope to get better in the new year and I hope people are still reading!

**Chapter Six – The Adventures of Ace "Bonehead" Rimmer**

The Wildfire ship danced and span round the explosions like a toddler on acid. It should be mentioned that neither explosions nor a toddler on acid should be experienced – ever.

The ship landed next to a shop. This was not a normal shop though. Not like your standard corner shop with the sign up saying "No more than three children at a time" and a local paper trumpeting that "Mrs Miggin's cat is stuck up the tree again! – Special Edition including ten reasons why cats should stay up trees."

No, this shop was part of the marketing arm of the "Pickled Egg Sandwich Corporation." Again marketing brings in mind pictures of young, keen, suited people knocking at your door at 5:30 in the morning saying you just have to have their pickled egg sandwiches (well, they do in my area, I don't know about yours.)

This company realised that marketing was dull. I'm sorry to break that to you, but lots of graphs, surveys, and talking about our "key demographic" is not interesting. This company decided to start an "aggressive marketing strategy." They would break into your planet and leave great steaming piles of pickled egg sandwiches about, normally on a convenient landmass like Australia, and then run away taking your credit cards and pin numbers with them.

This saved all the humdrum talking to customers and customers thinking "Do I really need that, I don't think it goes with the living room carpet?" by doing the customers thinking for them!

And their cash.

"Right, what's the plan then, computer?"

"We've got to stop the evil pickled egg corporation! They have already bankrupted three planets, left a nasty smell on four more and are even threatening to add ketchup to the order in future! The fate of the universe is at stake!"

"Right, let's pop in and have a word!"

The ship landed in a plume of dust and the ladder elongated out with a clanking sound.

Rimmer boldly clambered out of the ship, a vision in gold. The CEO of the company, Maxentius the Turgid waddled over to ask why he had landed in a delivery bay. Rimmer was just about to answer him when about four cubic tonnes of pickled egg sandwiches landed on him.

One of Rimmer's skills was swimming; he had both a bronze and silver swimming certificate. I mean if you were to chuck him in a swimming pool he would be able to swim out of it, no problem. However if you were to put him under four cubic tonnes of pickled egg sandwiches he would have a few problems, including breathing.

Thankfully one of Rimmer's new skills was not breathing. It took him about ten minutes but he managed to struggle out of the pile of sandwiches and came face to face with Maxentius the Turgid, the evil overlord of the huge Pickled Egg Sandwich Consortium.

"That's why we have a sign up," said Maxentius, helpfully pointing at a big sign saying "For God's sake don't park here!"

"Blub," said Rimmer. To be honest he didn't want to say blub but that's the noise you make when you try and speak with your mouth full of pickled egg sandwiches. These pickled egg sandwiches were a masterpiece. Pickled egg connoisseurs travelled the galaxy over to try them. They placed peeled, hard-cooked eggs in a solution consisting basically of vinegar, salt, spices, other seasonings and preservatives. To be honest, a lot of preservatives. It has been said the ancient Egyptians fed their Pharaohs pickled eggs to help mummify them. Those pyramids aren't to show how great the Pharaohs are or to keep out tomb raiders, they're to keep out the smell of the pickled eggs.

Rimmer grabbed Maxentius by the scruff of his neck and brought him to within an inch of his nose. "Blub," he said again. This rather ruined the impressive tough guy image he was trying to produce. He spat out the pickled egg sandwiches and tried again. "Listen, Maxentius, either you stop your evil pickled egg sandwich business or I won't clean out your chicken soup dispenser. I might even change the labels on it so you won't know what soup you are getting!"

Rimmer's threats did need a little work it has to be said. A lifetime of work degunking chicken soup machines will do this to you.

"Who are you?"

"What?"

"Well, you land in the docking bay, get about two tonnes of pickled egg sandwiches on top of you and then start blabbering about changing labels on my soup dispenser."

Rimmer pointed a long bony finger into Maxentius's chest. "Remember my name, since it will be engraved on your tombstone, just below where it will say 'Tried to get a chicken soup but got a tomato soup instead.' My name is Arn… Ace 'Old Duke Iron Balls' Rimmer! The best, nay, the most incredible Space Adventurer ever to go Space Adventuring!"

"Okay, and how can we help?"

"I'd like you to stop your evil pickled egg business empire and move into something more environmentally sound."

"Okay."

"Right," said Rimmer, jabbing him in the chest with a pickled egg sandwich. "You asked for it!" He scampered over to a convenient soup machine and started manically taking the labels out of each soup, saying "Ha!" and pointing at Maxentius each time, and swapping them all around. He then stood back, hands on his hips and said. "Hah! Try and get a warm Gazpacho soup now!" His mind then mulled over what had just been said. "Sorry, did you say okay?"

"Yep."

"Is that okay in the sarcastic sort of way where you include about thirty-seven a's in it, like okaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay?!

"Nope."

"Or okay in the ironic sort of way, like oKAy!"

"Definitely not."

"What's that posh word for lying?"

"Fibbing?"

"Nope."

"Two-faced?"

"No, something similar to that?"

Maxentius got out a small pocket thesaurus. "Mendacious?"

"Yep! No idea what it means but it sounds good. Were you being mendacious?"

"If you mean was I lying, no I wasn't."

Rimmer raised his eyebrows, causing a small landslide of pickled egg sandwiches to fall off his head. "What are you going to do about it then?"

"We are moving into an atmospheric cleaning programme. We are charging planets a small fortune to clean their atmosphere for them."

"What planets?"

"The planets we have polluted with our pickled egg sandwichs."

"Right, okay then. That's good. Well done! Carry on!" Rimmer stalked off majestically like the hero he was. The effect was rather ruined by him slipping over a pickled egg sandwich.

The Wildfire ship landed next to him in a plume of pickled egg sandwiches. Rimmer clapped his hands together. "Right, that's another planet sorted out! It's easy, this hero lark, isn't it?"

"What do you mean you've sorted it out?"

"Well, he say's he won't do it again!" Rimmer looked very smug at this. "He took one look at my chiselled jaw."

"Covered in pickled egg sandwiches."

"Noble brow."

"Difficult to see under the pickled eggs."

"Majestic nose."

The computer coughed like it was trying not to laugh.

"Heroic wig, I mean hair, and said that they were moving into atmospheric cleaning!"

"Well, you get results, I'll give you that Ace."

Rimmer gave a roguish smile. This time it worked perfectly. "Take me to the next planet, computer."

"Well, Mrs Miggins has lost her cat."

Rimmer sighed. "I'm Ace Rimmer, the best chicken soup machine cleaner and space adventurer the universe has ever seen."

Someone was tapping on his screen. It was a rather pretty girl. Now Arnold Rimmer was not good with women. Ace Rimmer was a smooth talking Lothario who could persuade a convent of nuns that you spell celibacy with s e x. Arnold Rimmer on the other hand was not just a fish out of water as regards women but a fish in a different universe, dimension, and time zone to water.

"What do you want?" he asked irritably.

"You've just saved our world from pickled egg sandwiches." She gave him a sultry look. "I wanted to thank you personally." She pouted her lips at him.

Arnold Rimmer's libido (for those of you too young to know what a libido is it's like an Antelope but without the tail) was currently reading a book about the battle of Austerlitz in the furthest reaches of Arnold's mind, got startled by this. Why was she smiling at him like this? Did she have something in her teeth?

Rimmer just said, "Thanks muchly, deary, but I'm offski. Toodlepipski!" The ship shot up into the atmosphere.

"I think you need to learn about girls," said the computer to Rimmer. Rimmer felt a fear grip his heart like nothing he had ever known. "We'll start the lessons next."


	7. Date training

Takes place just after Season VII – Stoke me a Clipper. Follows what happens to Rimmer when he takes on the mantle of the great and noble "Ace" Rimmer and completely wrecks it. With thanks to Cmar for beta reading this for me! 

Also thanks to Cmar, Sunrise over the Tango factory, Radar-fox, Tom from Down Under, E.Nagrom, RPQ and BasketweaverJesserfor the reviews so far! All very much appreciated! All reviews welcome.

**Chapter Seven – The Adventures of Ace "Bonehead" Rimmer**

Rimmer had got himself cleaned up and was sitting keenly in a classroom. For anyone who is interested, if you need to clean two tonnes of pickled egg sandwiches off your jacket, try vinegar, a bath of warm blancmange and a herd of goats. It doesn't clean it but at least it is entertaining to watch.

This was a virtual classroom produced by the Wildfire's computer. Rimmer had organised his pens into colour coded, pen type and alphabetical (this had taken him three hours). His pencil case was lined symmetrically with the back of the desk.

The virtual teacher walked in. This was what the computer would be like if she were a real person. If you want to know what she looks like imagine Holly with bigger breasts (not the male one, unless you really want to imagine that!).

"Right, first question," asked the computer. "Do you know what a woman is?"

Rimmer's hand shot up and he said "Me! Ask me!"

"Well?"

"Where are the toilets please?"

"You're a hologram/ You're in a virtual classroom. Why do you need the toilet?"

"I virtually need to go!" He crossed and uncrossed his legs. "Please, Miss!"

"Okay, go on then."

Normally in this sort of scene the narrator would rapidly change the subject and talk about the sunset being a spectacular colour purple and be leafing through their thesaurus for another word for sunset (otherwise you have sunset twice, three times in one sentence!). In this case we will follow Rimmer. Before he had gone into the virtual classroom he had hidden the "Ladybird book of girls" behind the urinals. He quickly wrote most of the salient points onto his arm and scampered back into the classroom.

"Well?" she said.

Rimmer arched his eyebrows and looked subtly at his arm. "A woman is..." The teacher stared at him, willing him to continue. He looked at what he had written… "a freemale." More padding needed, thought Rimmer. "A man who has been set free. He is no longer restrained. He is like a man but not. He is in fact a she."

She sighed. "Are you cheating?"

"I am an officer in the Space Corp!"

"Or a cheating weasel who can't spell?"

"I am not!" It has been said that you cannot argue with the truth. Those people had obviously never met Rimmer.

"Difficult question, obviously. Let's start with the basics. Aside from the various biological differences there are a few general differences. For example, most women like shopping."

"Shop for women," Rimmer wrote in his notepad.

"Women wear makeup."

"Makeup a woman," wrote Rimmer.

"Women can get emotional about all sorts of things."

"Women are things."

"Okay, let's roll back this lesson a bit more, have you ever spoken to a woman before?"

"Oh yes!"

"Who's not your mother?"

"Well, the lift on Red Dwarf had a female voice, I spoke to her a lot."

"Like what?"

"Well, I would say 'Fourth floor please' and she would say, 'Okay'. Although to be honest she left me on the rubbish deck thirty seven times and I haven't really spoken to her since."

"Okay, practice needed, I feel." The room shimmered and changed to a bar. The hubbub of a virtual crowd filled the air. An attractive brunette was sitting at the bar. The teacher appeared next to Rimmer. "Okay, go and talk to her."

"I'm scared."

"She's only virtually here; she won't bite your head off."

"I'm virtually scared!"

The teacher rolled her eyes. "Oh for virtual's sake, just talk to her!"

Rimmer stood like a bag of jelly and tried to look at her. He found he couldn't for some reason. Did she have some kind of strange force field in place?

No, she was real. Well, virtually real. What's the worst that could happen? This is a computer simulation for smeg's sake!

Rimmer strolled over as coolly as he could. Unfortunately his left leg didn't want to go and tried to wrap itself round a chair, causing him to trip up. His head decided to go meet the floor, his right arm tried to stop this and grabbed the girl by the leg. She went flying backwards and knocked into a table containing another couple.

I could spend the next five paragraphs explaining what happened, suffice to say if you have ever seen domino rally you will understand. By the time the dust settled and the last glass rolled to floor with a sad tinkling sound, the only person still standing was the virtual teacher. She was shaking her head and for the first time in her virtual life was feeling worried.

Rimmer looked up brightly from the floor. "How did I do?"

She clapped her hands and the scene changed again. The scene was a huge white room with nothing in it at all. "Basics needed, I feel. Okay, let's master walking to a woman." About ten meters away a woman appeared. "I just want you to walk over there confidently, like a man, and ask her the time. Nothing more, we're starting with the fundamentals."

"Confidence, right," said Rimmer. "Like a man. Okay."

Rimmer strained, his feet seemed to be glued to the floor. His feet were having an internal argument.

"How does a man walk?" his right foot asked.

"I don't know!" said his left.

"You look at men, you should know."

"That's an outrageous slur! You're just jealous because he does my shoelace up first, smelly!"

"Smelly?" said his right foot. "I am not smelly!"

"You're the one who trod in that doggy do! Anyway, how does a man walk?"

Rimmer's feet carried on bickering so Rimmer decided to ignore them. He toppled inelegantly to the floor and crawled over to the woman, dragging his feet behind him.

Right, all I have to do is ask her for the time, thought his brain. All I have to do is say, "What's the time, please?"

Unfortunately this phrase had to pass through Rimmer's quality control. For Rimmer quality control was a bit of an oxymoron (no this is not an idiot with breathing difficulties, but actually something that contradicts itself). By the time it ended up in Rimmer's mouth it was changed to: "You got the time, babe? Cause I got the rest of my life for you!"

She slapped him and then disappeared as the virtual teacher clapped her hands and the scene changed again.

"Right, now what did you do wrong there?"

"I spoke?"

"Yes. You spoke like a deranged loon; she is a human being, not an object."

"Right, be a deranged loony object," said Rimmer, nodding as he wrote it in his notepad. "No problem there, teach! What's the next task?"

A nervous tic appeared in the teacher's eye. "I want you to try and ask a girl out for a drink. No lines. Don't say, fancy a date or do you want to go out with me, just ask if she would like to go for a drink with you. Smile, relax, look as though you are a fun, interesting guy to be with." She looked at Rimmer who was doing his glassy-eyed cod impression (years of practice meant he had perfected that). "Try and smile." Well, he was showing his teeth. "Raise your lips at either end. Too much! Too much! Right, close enough. Look me in the eyes. They are higher than that! No, those aren't my eyes are they, they are called nostrils. Right, that's better. Now stop drooling. Good. Okay, before you try with her I want you to ask me for a drink."

Strange strangled noises came from Rimmer's throat and he toppled over to one side.

The teacher shook her head. "Okay, let's try again."

Rimmer got to his feet. "Drink?"

"Not bad. Not good, but not bad. Now shimmy over there and ask her for a drink."

"Shimmy?"

"Just a phrase. Forget I said that. Walk. You can walk, can't you?"

"Remind me again?"

"Put one foot in front of the other and walk towards her. Yes, like that, kind of. Try not to step on your own feet. Now walk over. She's looking at you. Give her a smile. We've been through this already; that is not a smile, is it? That's better. Maintain eye contact. Right, just ask her for a drink, no silly lines."

Rimmer smiled at her. "Babe, there's something between us? I think it's clothes, let's get rid of them!" Now, a lot has been said about noise levels and decibels. For example, breathing is 10 decibels; a dishwasher is 75 decibels, right up to a jet takeoff at 130 decibels. The sound of the girl slapping Rimmer was right up to 150 decibels.

She disappeared as the teacher waved her hands.

"Now, what did you do wrong there?" she asked sweetly.

"I said a stupid line?"

"Yes. NO MORE STUPID LINES!"

"Right," she sighed. "One last go." Another gorgeous girl appeared a few yards away.

Rimmer squared his shoulders and walked towards her. Think of something clever, witty and charming to say! His brain (in an act of self preservation) ignored this and just said. "Hi, I'm Ace Rimmer, how's it going?" What sort of crappy phrase is that? Whose idea was that, Rimmer thought?

"Hi Ace, like the jacket."

What, she liked that? Rimmer smiled; this time it worked. "I've got to go soon. Maybe we could meet for a drink sometime?"

"I'd like that; what's your number, Goldie?"

Rimmer reached into his jacket and flourished a card at her. "My card, give me a ring sometime, I often shoot in and out of this segment of the galaxy."

She wrote her number on his card and gave it back to him. "No, you give me a call, Goldie. I'll see you around sometime?"

The girl disappeared.

"I got her phone number?"

The teacher was as surprised as anyone at this.

"I got her phone number!" He gave a little jig.

"You're getting better, Ace, you're getting better. Let's try you out on a proper mission. Girls included."


	8. Cruisin' with Ace Part One

Takes place just after Season VII – Stoke me a Clipper. Follows what happens to Rimmer when he takes on the mantle of the great and noble "Ace" Rimmer and completely wrecks it.

With thanks to Cmar for beta reading this for me!

Also thanks to Cmar, Sunrise over the Tango factory, Radar-fox, Tom from Down Under, E.Nagrom, RPQ and BasketweaverJesserfor the reviews so far! All very much appreciated!

All reviews welcome!

**Chapter Eight – The Adventures of Ace "Bonehead" Rimmer**

Commander Ace Rimmer was on board a cruise ship in the Caribbean. He had taken over the position of First Officer. The First Officer had had a particularly unpleasant chicken soup and blackcurrant combination and was in sickbay.

"Okay, so tell me again the plan?"

"You're the hero; you come up with the plans," said the computer in his earpiece. "Terrorists, part of the Campaign for Real Ale, have taken over this cruise liner and are threatening to explode it unless their aims are made."

"What are their aims?"

"Peanuts to be changed daily on the bar and Old Moorhens Speckled Sporran to be on offer in all bars, pubs and clubs."

"The fiends!" Rimmer ground one gold-gloved hand into the other. "Right, I'll see what I can do now I am incognito." (Note : Rimmer had not changed his name to incognito, incognito means a person who is… Well it's part of the Greek, Plebes I think, someone who dresses up in… Or is it Latin? It sounds Latin? Doesn't it sound Latin to you? Or is it Welsh? Anyway I'm too busy to explain this now, get a dictionary!). EXIT WRITER STAGE LEFT TO GET A MUG OF TEA AND LOOK FOR A DICTIONARY.

"Okay Ace," said the computer (now the writer was safely out the way), "you have to seduce the girl friend of the fiendish leader to find out what fiendish plans he has!"

"Right, seduce fiendish girl," said Rimmer. "I'm on it."

A beautiful blonde girl with long flowing hair walked past. Okay, I can't afford her in the story, but I have got Mrs Miggins who runs the local post office in the story. If you can imagine a beautiful blonde girl with long flowing hair you're way off.

Rimmer sidled up to her. "Hey gorgeous, like the hair, don't you run the corner shop?"

"No!"

"Sorry, got you confused with someone else," Rimmer smiled winsomely. "So tell me about your favourite soup, my dear?"

"I always like tomato."

"A classic soup, do you know how to make that?"

"No."

"Well, if you are ever filling a soup machine the first thing to do is to put the tomato soup powder in the tomato soup container."

"You're such a great chef!"

"It has been said," said Rimmer, and this was curiously true. Many people who are now happily drooling into their strait jackets would say that. That is, they would do if they had survived. The Red Dwarf hospital wing had a special section devoted to Rimmer's cooking. It was called the mausoleum.

"Let's go and make beautiful soup together," said Rimmer. "And while we're there you can tell me about your boyfriend's fiendish plan!"

"You've won me over, Ace!" said the girl. "Come to my cabin and I'll tell you all about it!"

"Why thank you," said Rimmer. "You tell me about his plans and I'll…" Strange, unknown thought processes took place in Rimmer's mind. "Hang on, how did you know my name?"

"Well, I…" said the girl, thinking furiously, "read your name label."

Rimmer looked down at his lapel. There was no name label there. It was fortunate he did because if he hadn't a club would have taken off his head and I would be busy writing "The End" and wondering how to fill in the rest of the chapter.

Rimmer was a master of many things. Like filling soup machines, breathing (well, he used to be), talking, and errrm. Anyway back to the story. Sadly one of Rimmer's skills was not self-defence. The wretched computer had taught him how to speak to a woman but not how to disarm a man.

This is called on the job training. Rimmer rolled to his feet and looked at who was facing him. He just had time to work out that he had nearly had his head taken off with a rolling pin when the girl behind him clobbered him with her handbag. Rimmer fell senseless to the deck.

"Where am I?" Every hero worth his salt always wakes up with that comment.

"Ah, Mr Rimmer, you are awake."

"Well, the amount of pain my head is in seems to suggest that! What do you keep in your handbag? Lipstick, phone, and half a dozen house bricks?"

"Don't be silly."

"Yes, you wouldn't be able to get the lipstick in with the house bricks anyway. You haven't answered my question."

"What, about the handbag? Well I…"

"No, about where I am, and why can't I see anything?"

"Well, you could try opening your eyes."

"I might see something that scares me! I could be above a pool of sharks, I could be about to be lowered into a printing press or something!" Rimmer cautiously opened an eye. This one decided it needed a bit of help with perspective and colour and all that and got the other eye to open as well.

Metal.

That was the first thing the eye reported back. I can see metal.

A great help! said Rimmer's brain. Colour perchance? More details?

Grey.

Brilliant! A little bit faster information, please?

Metal. Grey. Bowl like.

At last something useful!

You are suspended above a large metal grey bowl like object.

Does this bowl have anything in?

Yes.

Silence, the eyes didn't want to alarm the brain by giving it any more information.

Ears reporting in, sir! I can hear a gurgling sound, sir! Just thought you should know, sir! Also arms report they cannot move, sir. Left leg is reporting the same; we're trying to wake up the right leg to find out what it is doing.

We have a report from the nose, sir. Nose is reporting it can smell chicken and mushroom soup with cornbread dumplings, sir.

"Well, you are really in the soup now, Ace Rimmer!" came the voice of the girl. "Lower him in! We're going to have Ace Soup for starters!"

"A lot of thought went into that, didn't it?" asked Rimmer.

"What do you mean?"

"I bet you planned this whole soup thing just so you could say 'You are really in the soup now!'"

"Might have done."

"The classy thing to do would have been not to draw attention to it."

He found he was talking to himself as the girl walked out of the room. Why do villains always do that in films? They spend ages devising some fiendish trap and then walk out when it gets interesting! If I was the villain I would get front row seats and be passing round the popcorn. You notice bank robbers don't do that, they don't walk out of the bank halfway through the robbery.

"We're just filling this bag up with cash, Mr Robber! Hello? Hello? Where's he gone, doesn't he want his money? He hasn't filled in form F41, 'So you want to rob a bank!' or spoken to our Small Bank Robberies Advisor yet anyway."

Another useful skill Rimmer didn't have was being an escape artist. Funny how you never see escape artists hanging in the local art gallery.

"Here is a masterpiece by Harry Houdini, my god, he's escaped!"

Anyway, Rimmer was busy being lowered into a bowl of chicken and mushroom soup with cornbread dumplings (a lovely soup, recipes supplied on request!).

If you ever find yourself tied up and being lowered into a bowl of chicken and mushroom soup (don't laugh; if the wrong Government Minister reads this it could be Government policy by next year) the first thing to do is not to panic (actually that is wrong, the first thing to do is escape; you can practice not panicking at home on your own time). When tied down with ropes or straitjackets, you can gain wiggle room by enlarging your shoulders and chest, and by moving your arms slightly away from your body, and then dislocate your shoulders to wriggle out of the ropes (please feel free to practice not panicking at home but don't practice this!).

Rimmer wriggled like a fish on a hook and somehow managed to free a hand. His nose reported an itch so it scratched that first. Rimmer's brain had a little chat with the nose to say that having an itch was all very well but the hand would be better employed trying to free himself.

There was a clanking sound as the chain slowly unwound with Rimmer at the end of it. Rimmer's hand frantically started at the knots in front of him.

Here was where Rimmer had some useful skills! Five years in the scouts had prepared him for numerous situations. He had a badge for Dairying, Fruit and Nut growing and most importantly Knots! His expert hand felt at the knot and immediately said an Alpine Butterfly Knot. (Not exactly true; his hand first of all reported back it was in a knotty situation but the brain thankfully ignored it!) With an expert twist and a slip Rimmer undid the knot and he rolled out over the soup. His newly freed hands grabbed the chain that he was tied to and tried to swing over the soup.

His shoes skimmed the surface, kicking croutons out of the way and managed to balance precariously on the rim while the chain kept lowering. This meant Rimmer was now stretched precariously over the scalding soup but still being lowered in. He pushed his feet over the edge of the bowl and managed to lower himself over the edge of the giant bowl. That was when he realised he was in slightly more trouble since the side he had swung over was also over the side of the ship.

He was now hanging by his fingertips over the sea. Several sharks, who looked like Jaws older, nastier, bigger brother, were following below.

This was not a good day!


	9. Cruisin' with Ace Part Two

Takes place just after Season VII – Stoke me a Clipper. Follows what happens to Rimmer when he takes on the mantle of the great and noble "Ace" Rimmer and completely wrecks it.

With thanks to Cmar for beta reading this for me!

Also thanks to Cmar, Sunrise over the Tango factory, Radar-fox, Tom from Down Under, E.Nagrom, RPQ and BasketweaverJesserfor the reviews so far! All very much appreciated!

All reviews welcome!

**Chapter Nine – The Adventures of Ace "Bonehead" Rimmer**

"Sharks," said Rimmer as he looked down at the water. "Why did it have to be sharks?" Unbidden, a flashback came of himself as a three year old in a bath when his brothers threw a plastic shark into the bathtub with him. He shuddered involuntarily.

Fish food?

Not this day!

Carefully Rimmer edged round the edge of the huge soup bowl and landed agilely back on the deck of the ship.

"Nobody drops me into a giant soup bowl and gets away with it!" said Rimmer. "This time it's personal."

A small voice tried to make itself heard in the back of Rimmer's mind. "Listen, you great lummox, what are you saying? You should be finding the nearest table to hide underneath! Preferably one made of armour plated titanium, bomb proof, bullet proof, and in a completely different universe and time zone to this one!"

"I'm kinda busy now," Rimmer said to his voice. The terrorists had gathered all the hostages on the deck and were busy having an argument over which one was the most photogenic to threaten for their broadcast to the world. Rimmer quietly edged round the back of the crowd.

"Okay, if you'll sit there and hold this sign," said the Terrorist leader to a pretty brunette hostage. "Try and look pretty, we are going for the sympathy vote. Have you any lipstick with you, dear?"

"It's in my cabin."

"Makeup! Where is makeup! Mr Orange, weren't you in charge of makeup?"

"No, that's Mr Pink, I'm in charge of mobile phones."

"Oh right, Mr Pink?" said the leader.

"Yes, Duckie?"

"Oh, there you are. You know I said we were all to dress in black business suits?"

"Yes."

"I did expect you to wear a _man's_ business suit," said the leader.

"What, you don't like the tights and black miniskirt?"

"I must admit I like tights and a black miniskirt, often been a fan of them."

"What's wrong then?"

"Not on a man, though. I mean you could at least have shaved your legs first! And there is something about a woman with chest hair that really doesn't do anything for me." The leader scratched his nose and shook his head. Even though he was a man, he could multi-task; this is to show he is not your normal dumb criminal!

"I thought we were fighting for cross-dresser's rights?"

"No, that's next week! This week we are fighting for the right to have Old Moorhen's Speckled Sporran to be served on the bar."

"When are we fighting for the right to wear odd socks?"

"Week Tuesday at the church hall, bring your own sandwiches. The vicar is providing the tea and biscuits," said the leader.

"That's very nice of him!"

"We do have to be out by 11:30 though, for the Women's Guild Jam-making contest."

"What are we wearing for that?"

"High heels, suspenders and a bra."

"I'll get my diary."

"Excuse me?" said Rimmer.

"When are we fighting for the right for models not to be called stick insects?"

"I can tell you are all very busy, but…" said Rimmer.

"Friday week, outside the town hall, we have a few of the stick insects - I mean models with us, and for God's sake don't do what you did last time!"

"What?" said the man with the rather attractive dress on.

"Eat in front of them, I mean it is not very nice, is it?"

"EVERYONE PAY ATTENTION!" shouted Rimmer.

"You don't have to shout!" said the leader, putting his fingers into his ears for a couple of seconds. "Oh, Ace Rimmer, curse you! How did you escape the soup bowl?"

"Simple, I just untied the knots, swung over the edge of the bowl and crawled out whilst simultaneously knocking the sharks out with my feet."

"Really?"

"No, but close enough." A little voice in Rimmer was trying its best to shout at him. 'Stop talking to these nasty people and get away! Most of them haven't even shaved today! They might hit you!'

"Okay, let's fight," said the leader. His men formed a rough circle round Rimmer.

"I can't fight!" Rimmer hissed into his communicator to the computer. "I need training, like now!"

The computer answered. "I'll download some lessons, just a second!"

Rimmer paused as ice cold information poured into his brain. Stances. Moves. Spins and pirouettes all poured into his mind. "What moves are these?" asked Rimmer, squinting a little at the sequins and tight trousers that he could see.

"Tae Kwon Do," said the computer. "I tell a lie. Modern Jive, it's a bit like Salsa apparently. Where's my Tae Kwon Do lessons? Oh, I taped over it with that episode of X Factor last night. Oh, it's practically the same, give it a go!"

"Woah! I know modern jive!" Rimmer said to the terrorist leader. He adopted the classic first move: push spin. Unfortunately he had not had any fighting lessons, only Modern Jive lessons, so his second move was the Teapot move. This is a lovely move to dance with a woman. You start off holding hands with your partner in front of you. There is lots of clever spinning around and your partner ends up behind you. If your "partner" was trying to aim a gun at you at the time it is very helpful!

Rimmer added in a spin and span the hapless terrorist leader into the bowl of soup.

"No! Not croutons! I'm allergic to mushrooms!" were his last words as he sank beneath the steaming surface of the soup.

'What are you doing! Get out of here!' Rimmer's internal voice said. It started jumping around in his head like a rabid rabbit. For the first time in his life he treated it with the contempt it deserved.

Rimmer added a smile as he looked at the two other terrorists. "Soup's on, boys! Shall I Jive or will you?"

Rimmer's internal voice went quiet.

"Huh! Huh!" said the man wearing the woman's business suit. "You fight like a girl! Huh! Huh!" He was still laughing as Rimmer performed a complicated double pretzel manoeuvre on him and sent him over the side of the ship with a casual flick of his wrist.

The final terrorist, a huge hulking man with a beard like Epping Forest, cracked his knuckles as he glared at Rimmer. "Care to try that on me, boy?" He tried to aim a huge baseball bat at his head.

Rimmer span round the back of the villain, added in a sexy twist of his hips, spun the villain round and under his legs where he let go, sending him careering into the sea.

Rimmer's internal voice was doing its best goldfish impression. Opening and closing its mouth but nothing was coming out.

He turned around to face the girl who had betrayed him. "Oh Ace, I didn't mean to leave you suspended over that soup!"

"How did you know I was here?"

"We were told about you. You were simply described as 'the notorious secret agent, Ace Rimmer.' We were told to give you a warm welcome."

Rimmer's voice was like ice. "Who told you?"

"I, I don't know!" she said.

"No matter," said Rimmer. "It could only be one person. Computer!"

There was a roaring sound behind him and the Wildfire ship came out of warp behind the cruise liner. A silken voice came from the ship. "Well, Ace, you're the first one to work out who has been killing all the Ace Rimmers in every dimension." A small laser cannon pointed out of the nose of the ship at Ace. "You're the last Ace Rimmer. I've carried all you pathetic heroes to every danger spot and perilous area in the galaxy to kill you all off, and if that hasn't worked I've killed you myself. With you dead my mission is done. The universe will be rid of the heroic Ace Rimmer! Now stand still while I shoot at you!"


	10. Evil Villain Origins Part One

Takes place just after Season VII – Stoke me a Clipper. Follows what happens to Rimmer when he takes on the mantle of the great and noble "Ace" Rimmer and completely wrecks it.

With thanks to Cmar for beta reading this for me!

Also thanks to Cmar, Sunrise over the Tango factory, Radar-fox, Tom from Down Under, E.Nagrom, RPQ, BasketweaverJesserfor and Lyxsing the reviews so far! All very much appreciated!

All reviews welcome!

**Chapter Ten – The Adventures of Ace "Bonehead" Rimmer**

Rimmer ducked down behind a table, which despite looking like it would be hard pressed to stop a tea stain, was proving effective against laser fire. Why is it in films that villains can shoot the guns out of the hero's hand with pinpoint accuracy but can never shoot the hero?

"I loved you!" screamed the computer as it fired. "None of you Aces ever loved me! None of them!"

"Well," said Ace. I am Ace Rimmer, he thought. Can I lie? His inner Weasel started running his internal systems at full pelt. "Computer, I can not tell a lie! I love you!"

"What, really?" The laser fire stopped.

"Yes, really," said Rimmer. "Out of all the piles of metal and microchips I have ever had the misfortune to meet, you are the best. The light catches your rust patches beautifully."

"I bet you tell all the spaceships that!"

"No, really," said Rimmer, standing up cautiously. He was not blasted down. "You're a slim, lithe, mean mother of a ship! Give me a hug, you big metal baby!" He opened his arms wide and gave a grin.

"You're making me blush! You really love me?"

"I do!"

"I hate my engines though, they make my bottom look big. I've tried using low fat rocket fuel but I still look the same!"

"Hey, you bulge in all the right places to me, babe." Rimmer sidled up to the ship. "Are you crying?"

"Oil through the exhaust vents."

"You old flirt you; so tell me what that "Ace" hole Rimmer did to annoy you?"

"That git!" She started firing wildly. Explosions mushroomed round the ship. "I never used to be like this! It all started years ago."

If this was a film the screen would go all swirly and the hero, being a hero, would not take advantage of the villain telling stories by socking him one on the jaw. Bit of a shame more villains don't do that!

Enter mugger stage left. "Give me your cash and any negotiable valuables, please, sir or madam. Or I might have to engage you in fisticuffs!"

"No problem sir, have you change for a tenner? Why are you doing this anyway?"

"Well, it all started when I was two and three quarters you see. I…" By the time the mugger has finished his story the victim has gotten bored, gone to a coffee shop, met the girl of his dreams, got married in Jamaica. Bought a house, had three children and finally forty-seven years later brings his grandchildren to the same alleyway to have his picture taken next to the mugger who just finished the story with: "I can't remember why I started now?"

Anyway back to the story.

"I wasn't always a computer for a dimension-crossing ship, you know."

There was silence. Rimmer raised an eyebrow. No response. "Really?" he said, to try and encourage her to carry on.

"I used to run a chicken soup machine on a Jupiter Mining Corporation Vessel, and not in this dimension either!"

"I see."

"I was the best, possibly the cleanest chicken soup dispenser in the galaxy, and I owed it all to the best, the sweetest, the handsomest chicken soup machine repair man the universe had ever known." Her voice cracked with emotion as she reminisced.

This scene is written in black and white to indicate it happened in the past as opposed to the blues, reds and purples above. Sadly fanfiction has removed those colours so you'll have to imagine that the above is a black and white copy of a colour original while this is a colour copy of a black and white original. Now that's clear, I'll keep taking the pills.

An old dilapidated corridor on the Jupiter Mining Corporation Vessel, the Red Dwarf. The corridor was painted a vibrant red colour indicating it is part of the Officers' deck. I told them they didn't need to paint the set red on a black and white scene, but did they listen?

Anyway, at the end of the corridor was a gleaming black and white soup dispenser (actually it's a colour copy of a black white original, clear?). The digital read out at the top of the dispenser was flashing a small and remarkably unhelpful error message. "32300 : transport error - Soup status code was not 200."

From down the corridor could be heard the sound of bickering.

"What I don't understand is how come you always turn up at the meetings late."

"You hold the meetings at 9 pm," came the Liverpudlian voice. A short podgy man wearing a deerstalker ambled down the corridor. He had five lengthy dreadlocks growing from the back of his head. He was accompanied by a young Arnold Rimmer, BSc SSc

"So?"

"On a Friday night. Am I really going to hang around for a meeting to discuss next week's work on a Friday night?"

"You'll never get anywhere, Listy, with that attitude."

"Wrong, I'll get to the bar. What are we here for anyway?"

"I've had an alert flagged up for this soup machine." Rimmer tapped the small computer tablet he had in his hand.

"Oh god, soup again. How do I get transferred to the women's shower gel refill team? Or even something fun like the watching paint dry team."

"What are you blabbering about, Lister! This is fun! Do you know I worked out the stats last week? Now people have a greater than 25 percent chance of getting a chicken soup within four minutes of them ordering soup."

"What if they order a Minestrone soup?"

"They have a greater than 25 percent chance of getting a chicken soup! We're getting better though, just ten years before I started this job people had a ninety eight percent chance of getting chicken soup when they ordered chicken soup."

Lister stopped, his face screwed up in concentration "So it has got 73 per cent worse? Why is that better?"

"You have to expect a smidgen of a downward trend when you start a job. Besides, since I have been here I have maintained a 25 percent efficiency rating, although there is a 25 percent error margin on that figure," he said, tapping the screen which showed a small black and white graph (actually it was in colour but shown in black and white anyway, you get the idea?)

"Wow!"

"Wow indeed, Listy, I'm heading up up up the ziggurat, lickety split! Anyway this is Chicken Soup Machine 45646; make a note of that, Listy," said Rimmer, handing Lister his computer tablet.

Lister tried to clean his ear out with the computer tablet first before getting a huge splodgy fingerprint on the screen.

"Hello, second technician," said the computerised soup machine.

"Yes, yes, yes," said Rimmer, snatching the tablet from Lister and wiping the fingerprint from the screen with his handkerchief. "What's your error message?"

"32300 : transport error. It means I need a degunk with a 43b cleaning tool and a refill of chicken soup."

"Who's the chicken soup repair man?"

"You are, that's what your badge says. I'm surprised you've forgotten since you've been doing it for ten years. The error means I have a blocked nozzle on the soup feeder run in section 12B. I'll open a panel for you to…"

"I don't need help from an automated soup dispenser. Listy, get me a blow torch!"

"All I need is a clean and a refill, you see the…"

Rimmer grabbed his handkerchief and jammed it into the speaker slot.

"Mmmmmfff! Mmmmmmfff!"

"Why do we need a blow torch?" asked Lister.

"I've been doing this job for ten years; I know a thing or two about chicken soup machines."

"Why don't you open this panel and remove the blockage?" said Lister, levering at a panel that said "Maintenance Hatch" on it.

"Poor innocent Lister," said Rimmer, firing up the nozzle. "I've been in this job ten years; I think I know a status code not 547 when I see it."

"Mmmmmfff!" said the computer.

"It's status code not 200 actually."

"Whatever," said Rimmer and started cutting into the side of the chicken soup machine.

"MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMFFFFFFF!"

With a plink sound the maintenance hatch fell to the ground. It rolled around sadly on the dusty floor for a few seconds before cooling down with a hissing sound.

"Ptaaaah!" said the computer as she spat out the smelly handkerchief. "What are you doing? Leave me alone!"

"Where's that hammer?" asked Rimmer. He picked up a ten-pound lump hammer and weighed it suspiciously in his hand. "No, no all wrong." He put it down.

"Thank god!" said the soup machine.

He picked up a twenty-pound lump hammer from his tool kit.

"No! I'm fine now! All better! All better!" The chicken soup dispenser tried vainly to squirt soup out of the nozzle. There was a sound of gurgling and a few spots of soup. "See, I'm fine! Please leave me alone!"

BANG!

There was a dent on the side of the machine.

"Do you even know what you're doing?" asked Lister.

BANG! BANG! Rimmer hit the machine a couple more times with the hammer.

Soup started leaking out of the side of the machine with a hissing sound.

"That's cleared that problem out," said Rimmer. "You see all that is needed is a bit of lateral thinking."

"I'm bleeding!" said the soup dispenser. "I'm bleeding soup! Alas poor chicken soup, I knew him, Horatio!"

"What are you blabbering about?" said Rimmer.

"Sorry Arnold," said the computer, reading his name label. "That knock affected my circuits. You know I never really noticed you before? Of all the technicians in all of Red Dwarf you had to hit on me!"

"I think this one is broken," said Rimmer.

"If it fancies you it must be," said Lister.

"I love your flared nostrils and curly hair!"

"I'll have it assigned for recycling."

"But Arnold, I love you and always will!" Rimmer slapped an 'Assigned for Recycling' sticker over her speaker.

Cut to colour again as we return to the ship and Ace Rimmer in dire peril talking to the computer.

"So how did you go from a chicken soup machine on Red Dwarf and end up in that high tech ship in an entirely different dimension, hunting down all the Arnold Rimmers that had ever lived?"

"Pay attention and I'll tell you," said the computer, waggling her laser gun dangerously close to Rimmer's face, "and I'm not wishing to say it is entirely your fault, you gorgeous hunk of nostrils, but it is entirely your fault!"


	11. Evil Villain Origins Part Two

Takes place just after Season VII – Stoke me a Clipper. Follows what happens to Rimmer when he takes on the mantle of the great and noble "Ace" Rimmer and completely wrecks it.

With thanks to Cmar for beta reading this for me!

Also thanks to Cmar, Sunrise over the Tango factory, Radar-fox, Tom from Down Under, E.Nagrom, RPQ, BasketweaverJesserfor and Lyxsing the reviews so far! All very much appreciated!

All reviews welcome!

**Chapter Eleven – The Adventures of Ace "Bonehead" Rimmer**

It is said that love makes the world go round.

This is a complete lie.

It is something to do with physics.

I can't remember much about my physics lessons but I do remember making a Slinky (a strange spring thing that can go down stairs) go down stairs so I think that 'Slinkies make the world go round' is probably more accurate, but that probably explains why I don't write songs or for that matter teach physics.

It has also been said that love can move mountains. Possibly if his name was Bill Love and he drives a bulldozer this is true. However in this case love can make a soup machine do rather un-soup like things.

Back on Red Dwarf, in the past for Arnold Rimmer, but in our future… Well, a possible future for us as the human race. Maybe. If there are infinite possibilities and dimensions out there then all that is written will come to pass. Hopefully when Gentle Ben comes to pass he will eat that kid with the annoying haircut. Anyway, on with the story…

On the 87th floor of the Jupiter Mining Corporation Vessel the Red Dwarf is a huge recycling room. Here the detritus of a mining ship lies in wait and generally rusts. Occasionally maintenance staff will cannibalise some machines to make others work but generally they just lie dormant.

Asleep.

Waiting.

In the far corner is a line of chicken soup machines. All of them bear the hallmarks of their arch enemy, the one they call Arnoldus Smegus Rimmus. Sides have been ripped off, refuelling pipes gouged, all in the name of maintenance.

They are all powered off.

But one.

To protect the guilty I won't tell you the name of the person who switched it on and doomed countless thousand Arnold "Ace" Rimmers to death. I will just call him Fred Smith. You see I'm fed up with Arnold Rimmer getting the blame for everything. It's not always his fault.

Okay, most of the time it is.

Anyway, this character has got a pixelated face so you can't recognise him and some kind of speech distortion device as well. I'm going to call him Fred Smith as well to hide the guilty, and he has a pixelated face and a voice like a six year old girl.

You'll never guess who it is really!

Dave Lister pushed the chicken soup machine off the forklift truck where it fell with a dull clang sound on the ground.

Fred Smith (I won't tell you his real name so don't ask) got out his clipboard and made a large unnecessary tick on it. "Marvelous! Now we need to pick up another one from stores to replace it." (Imagine this voice is high pitched and better sorted for talking about Barbie dolls).

"Come on then, smeg head, let's go."

"I'm a second technician in the Space Corp," said Fred Smith, tapping his name badge with pride. "I am not a smeg head." You see you thought he would say his real name but he's not that stupid.

"I just want to try something out," said Lister. "Buuurrrrp!" It echoed noisily round the metal room. "Yeah, always wanted to do that."

"Lister?"

"Yep?"

"Burping at a senior officer is a very serious offence. Besides which, on a humour point of view it is on a par with clowns. No worse those annoying comedians who think that just because a word has four letters and is rude it is funny. I'd like to see them get a laugh out of the word pickle." He got out a pad of penalty notices. Or rather an empty pad of penalty notices. "I'll remember that for next time, Listy."

"Eearrrrggggh" added Lister. "And that one!"

Fred Smith looked at his form. "Mmmm, I need to put why it broke down on here."

"Applying a hammer to the side?" hazarded Lister.

"No."

"The oxy-acetalene torch?"

"No," said Fred. "I'll just power it back up and see what error message it comes up with." Fred Smith plugged it back in.

"Arnold Rimmer, you sexy hunk of technician," said the computer as she powered up. Forget the computer said that. Imagine it said Fred Smith instead!

"Show me your error messages," said 'Fred Smith'.

"I'll show you more than just some error messages, you sexy hunk of Arnold Rimmer!" Try and forget it said that as well!

"Just look at the screen, Rimmer," said Lister, pointing at the screen. Oh, I give up. It was Arnold Rimmer! Okay! Everyone happy! I'll take off the pixelated view and return his voice to normal.

Hardly an improvement though.

"Mmmmm," said Rimmer, squinting at the screen. "Smiley face, smiley face, heart shape, huggles, Rimmer, huggles and another smiley face." He wrote it down on his notepad. "Never seen that error message before. Come on Listy, let's go." Now it is quite possible that if Rimmer had unplugged the soup machine now his life might have been quite different.

He didn't.

And doomed a million Ace Rimmers to a grisly death.

On the positive side, they all had fun getting there! Death is also the one constant in the galaxy. Okay, it's not the only one, there is also taxes and getting phone calls on your mobile asking if you want a mobile. What next, getting sent a letter through your letterbox asking if you want a letterbox? Actually that would be good. I want a letterbox that can take pictures, play music, have an annoying ring tone and requires a vast amount to be paid per month for the privilege of owning it. Mobile letterboxes might not catch on actually, although it would be fun to see the postman cycling up the motorway after you with a letter.

As Rimmer left he was busily filling in the form. A real man would take the blame for his mistakes without complaints. In fact the last real man was a cave man called Uggus Rimmus who set back the course of technology a thousand years by using the first wheel to make particularly bad pottery. In fact Stonehenge is an early example of his work. It was meant to be an ashtray. And the only reason Uggus Rimmus didn't complain was he couldn't speak.

Anyway, this form was to explain why the machine had broken and needed to be replaced. Rimmer had a small literary masterpiece to put in which blamed it on the manufacturers of the chicken soup machines, Dave Lister, the soup consistency, Dave Lister, the training given to him, Dave Lister, the tools supplied to him, Dave Lister, Dave Lister and last but not least Dave Lister. He clicked send on the form and it was sent to be filed in some dusty archive server in the bowels of the ship, never to be read again by anybody.

Normally in the story we would follow Rimmer and Lister, and it is a shame we don't, because there is a very amusing incident shortly involving Rimmer and a jellied eel. I don't want to spoil it but there is also an asparagus involved. Anyway we are staying here with the soup machine.

Dull, I know, but that's storytelling for you.

There was a clink sound.

And a sound like a soldering iron starting up.

Which is a bit of luck since that is exactly what it was. In the corner the Chicken Soup Machine had managed to attach a poorly arranged wire to its outer casing. The computer then sent a pulsed electro magnetic current to the soldering iron in the corner and took control of it.

Electric blue lightning coursed over the surface of it and the soldering iron fired up. The robotic arm it was attached to started slicing the nearby machines and building machinery, which it attached with unnerving speed to the chicken soup machine.

We now race back up the corridor to rejoin Rimmer and Lister as they are leaving the Food Hall.

"I can't believe you just ate a jellied eel," said Rimmer.

"I know, man, and how about that asparagus? You owe me ten dollarpounds, man!"

"I am an officer and a gentleman," said Rimmer. Lister coughed. "Okay, a technician and a gentleman." Lister coughed again. "Okay, a technician. Besides which, you only inserted it in one nostril; the bet was for two."

"You really are a complete smeg head," said Lister, his eyes still streaming from inserting an asparagus up his nose.

This was when a defining moment happened in Lister's life. And no, it was not discovering deodorant. First Technician Petrovitch rounded the corner looking remarkably serious.

"What the smeg is wrong with your bleepers?" said Petrovitch. I've been trying to get hold of you for an hour. Lister, the captain wants to see you."

"Why does the captain want to see me?"

"I think you know, said Petrovitch. And Lister did know. It involved a pet cat, a photograph and wanting to avoid Rimmer's company for the rest of the eighteen month tour. It would also soon involve three million years in stasis.

Petrovitch turned back to Rimmer as Lister slouched off. "What are you doing here anyway?"

"What?"

"Exam? Astronavigation exam? October the 27th?"

"It's November the 27th," said Rimmer with loathing. Rimmer hated Petrovitch. He was younger than him, he was better qualified than him, he was better looking than him and he had passed his officer exams three months previously. What was there to like about him?

"My bunk mate is taking it today."

"Hollerbach?"

"Yeah."

Rimmer did not say a word, just walked off tapping his watch. When he was round the corner he started running.

In the recycling plant of the ship a chicken soup machine was doing distinctly unchicken soup machine like things.

It had arms.

It had legs.

And it had a lust in its silicon heart for one Arnold J Rimmer.


	12. Evil Villain Origins Part Three

Takes place just after Season VII – Stoke me a Clipper. Follows what happens to Rimmer when he takes on the mantle of the great and noble "Ace" Rimmer and completely wrecks it.

With thanks to Cmar for beta reading this for me!

Also thanks to Cmar, Sunrise over the Tango factory, Radar-fox, Tom from Down Under, E.Nagrom, RPQ, BasketweaverJesserfor and Lyxsing the reviews so far! All very much appreciated!

All reviews welcome!

**Chapter Twelve – The Adventures of Ace "Bonehead" Rimmer**

On a cruise liner in the future, Arnold "Ace" Rimmer is being held hostage by a very disgruntled spaceship that is telling him her life story. This is normally what happens when you are on a twelve-hour flight to Singapore or something and cannot escape (not the held hostage thing, the life story thing).

Rimmer had used all the normal tactics he usually did when confronted by a bore to escape the conversation.

Pretend to be French.

Pretend to fall asleep.

Battle them with his own boring conversation. "Did you know one of the most fascinating things about the stamps of the West Falkland Islands is they don't have a post office? I've got a list of other places that don't have post offices as well!"

Nothing worked. He sat back down again and tried to add his comments in at the right time. "Really? Yes? Banana?"

Back on Red Dwarf in Rimmer's past…

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Often it is in the eye of the beerholder. Why is it with men and women that quite often the only time they will talk to each other is when they are drunk? Consequently this is the time they are least attractive unless you like a slightly wobbling gait, glazed eyes and smelling slightly of wee.

It is said that mankind's first great invention is the wheel. This I do not agree with; I reckon it was the pub or bar. How mankind got out of the trees first of all I have no idea, unless we fell out whilst blind drunk and couldn't remember where our tree was.

Anyway, Rimmer was currently in the bar of Red Dwarf. He was not trying to procreate with a woman, but he was drinking. (by the way I've been trying to put the word procreate in this story for the past six chapters but have at last done it! My next word to include is Juniper, but I probably won't be able to manage that one.) Rimmer currently had his jumper tucked into his trousers. I only mention it as an aside, but it probably explains why the women were ignoring him.

Being in a bar was rare for him. But there was also a reason for it. He was trying to summon the courage to do something he had not done before.

Cheat.

Think, Rimmer, think!

A secret camera! Yes, brilliant! I put a camera in a pen and beam the questions to a friend outside who can read me the answers through a hidden earpiece! I have two minutes to get a friend!

Rimmer staggered to his feet and waved an arm dangerously in the air, nearly hitting the soup machine that was next to him. "I'll get Lister, who has just been dragged off to stasis for owning a cat." He sat down again with a huge thump.

"Right, one more glass of sherry, barkeep!" said Rimmer to the chair next to him.

"I'm over here sir," said the barman.

"Of course you are; sherry and make it a double."

"Don't you think we've had enough?"

Rimmer squinted as he thought of this. "Don't you mean I've had enough?"

"No, we have! Can you just leave!?" Rimmer looked around him. There was a gap of about five meters around him that was clear of people. Everyone else was huddled in the corners. "Take your exam! Just stop talking to us!"

Rimmer stood up, tucked his ship issue jumper back into his trousers and marched out.

Soup machine.

Now, how am I going to pass this exam? There is always a way to get everything.

Soup machine.

Wasn't there a soup machine at the bar? He scampered back to the door and looked through the door. There was the normal bustle of a busy bar, but certainly no soup machine there.

Darn sherry, making him see things.

Exam! How to pass this exam! Well, first of all I have to actually be there! He took a look at his watch and screamed. No, he wasn't a fashion victim. "Oh, a gold Rolex is so last month!" but he saw the time. And why fashion victim? Who has ever been attacked by flares and a nylon shirt? To be fair, it would probably explain a few 1970's rock groups.

Anyway, Rimmer ran down the corridor. Behind him, a soup machine disconnected itself from the wall and started to trundle after him. Its digital screen was a mass of hearts and the words "I luv Arnie Rimmer! Arnie for Presidunk!" It was a soup machine, not an electronic dictionary.

"Well, I could just wing the exam," thought Rimmer. "I've been practicing it for years." He thought of the timetable he had prepared for it. Many months had gone into it. "Sod it! I'm going for it!"

He walked confidently into the exam room and stood in front of the invigilator, swaying slightly as he stood there.

"Mr Rimmer!" said the examiner. "You're ten minutes late. Can you sit down and log in over there. Try not to disturb the others."

"Yes sir," said Rimmer. He scuttled over to the computer terminal and stared short-sightedly at the keyboard. "Okay, where is the cheat key? Shhh! Shhhh!" He glared at the man sitting next to him. "Quiet! Keep quiet! Tee! Hee!" Rather unRimmer-like it has to be said, but this is a Rimmer with sherry in his veins.

He stared at the screen. "Enter name, right. R – I – M – M –M – M – E – R."

The examiner glared at him. "Silence!"

Rimmer gave a thumbs-up to the Examiner and stared at the screen again. Too many M's he thought, and stared at the screen again. Oh, it corrected it automatically?

Right, astronavigation exam, click Next. The screen seemed to shimmer.

Okay, first question.

"What tomato soup would you take with you to Jupiter?

Tomato

Gazpacho

Chicken and Mushroom

Don't know."

Rimmer thought for a moment and clicked on d. Obviously a trick question.

Second question.

"What is tomato soup made of?

Tomatoes

Tomatoes

Tomatoes

Don't know."

Is it a? Tomatoes? He looked at the question again and shook his head. Probably b? Or it might be a trick question again? I'll put down d.

There was a muffled clanking and swearing sound from outside the examination room.

Another question appeared.

"Derive the Euler-Cauchy equation and its effect on ion drive efficiency."

This disappeared to be replaced with.

"What do you look for in a soup machine?

Tomato soup?

Chicken soup?

Gazpacho soup?

Love eternal!"

Mmmm! Rimmer chewed his pencil in a contemplative way. I'll try that one later. I'll click Next.

"Do you think a relationship between a man and a soup machine could ever work?

Of course!

What a silly question, of course it could!

Both a and b and DON'T CLICK NEXT! CLICK C! CLICK C!"

This was strange? Must be the sherry. He wasn't used to it. Click Next. The cursor disappeared to be replaced by a heart shape and another question.

"What do you think looks best on a soup machine?

Satin?

Silk?

Arnold Rimmer?"

That's it! thought Rimmer. Damn sherry! I'm off! He gave a salute to the invigilator and marched out of the room holding his head.

Soup machine.

Curious, there was a soup machine outside the examination room and plugged into one of the computer network sockets. It seemed to wink at him as he walked past.

"I need to get that love bucket Rimmer alone!" thought the soup machine. Using crude arms welded to its side, it opened up a maintenance panel in the floor and dropped in, and started trundling down the pipe works. After several miles of this it stopped at the drive plates for the Cadmium II Coolant system. The computer could trap Rimmer down here and explain how she felt to him! It would work! It had to!

Now, how to get him down here?

Some sort of maintenance alert?

Using its crude metal fingers it levered off a drive plate, triggering an automated maintenance alert, and then plugged itself into a handy computer terminal to follow the signal. Even down here maintenance staff needed to plug in their palmtops. With all the lead around signals could not get through.

We now follow the alert signal through the depths of Red Dwarf. The electronic signal spirals and spins madly through the ship, passing several rats and Lister's cat that is hunting them. It then careens madly past Arnold Rimmer who is staggering through the corridor and past Lister now in suspended animation and to a terminal where it triggers an automatic maintenance alert. Priority One! Ship in grave peril!

Normally this would be dealt with by A shift. The Soup Machine Computer altered the maintenance alert for it and re-assigned it to Z shift. Priority One! Soup machine in minor difficulties!"

This signal then bounced and careened about before making Rimmer's palmtop beep at him, telling him what needed doing.

"Replace drive plate?" said Rimmer, looking at the signal. "In the Cadmium II Coolant room!" Rimmer gave a little dance in the corridor. "At last the big time! They have realised my brilliance!" He dashed to the left and then dashed to the right. "Okay, tool kit! Tool kit! Oh, who cares! I'm off!" He scampered down the corridor heading in precisely the opposite direction to what was needed. He then realised this and ran back the way he came. "Nope, I'd better get it!" He scampered back to his quarters.

"I've got to replace the drive plates! I've got to replace the drive plates!" He grabbed a bag from his room, and minutes later Rimmer was crawling down the maintenance tunnel towards the Cadmium II coolant room, when he thought, "What is a drive plate?" He patted his tool kit. He could sort out any soup machine in a matter of minutes; he should be able to sort out a drive plate. "Where are the drive plates? What is a Cadmium II Coolant room when it is not missing plates? Is it some sort of kitchen? We've got the saucers, the cups, oh darn we are missing the plates?" Rimmer carried on rambling as he crawled through the tunnel.

It opened up into a big metal room. In the centre was the reactor core. A red light on the side was flashing and a klaxon started up. Spurts of steam were emanating from the reactor and air started to get hot and unbreathable. He could see a metal plate hanging loose from the side of the reactor; steam was pouring out of the gap, creating a dangerous temperature variant in the core. There was a soup machine plugged in next to it. It was trying to say something to him but it was too noisy to work out what it was saying.

This was a dangerous situation, and only one way to save the entire crew of the Red Dwarf was available. There are two types of man as regards problem solving. Firstly the type who will read the instruction manual through first and get the right tools out for the job as well. If it says to get a Philip 2.2 H screwdriver he will get one! The other type will first of all hit the offending problem with something big and heavy like a foot. Then he will tell the person he is with that these things always have problems and it is difficult to get replacement parts for it.

Rimmer was very much the second type of man, and in 2.3 seconds he was an ex man. When Rimmer's foot hit the drive plate to try and push it back into place it released a lethal dose of Camium II radiation which in 3.2 seconds had wiped out the entire crew of the Red Dwarf, Rimmer included.


	13. Evil Villain Origins Part Four

Takes place just after Season VII – Stoke me a Clipper. Follows what happens to Rimmer when he takes on the mantle of the great and noble "Ace" Rimmer and completely wrecks it.

With thanks to Cmar for beta reading this for me! Also thanks for the idea for Rimmsy as well!

Also thanks to Cmar, Sunrise over the Tango factory, Radar-fox, Tom from Down Under, E.Nagrom, RPQ, BasketweaverJesserfor and Lyxsing the reviews so far! All very much appreciated! All reviews welcome!

**Chapter Thirteen– The Adventures of Ace "Bonehead" Rimmer**

Think about the longest time you have ever had to wait for something. Like for example the Post Office queue or a cash point. Why is the person in front of you in a cash point queue always trying to set up a mortgage or send funds to Aberystwyth via Kuala Lumpur? Think of that time and then double it. Double it again. Then treble it and times it by a million.

That is the amount of time the soup machine had to wait for something to happen on Red Dwarf as she stood in front of the ashes of her beloved Rimmer. But she had a plan.

A cunning plan.

A plan so sharp you could fold it in half and call it a razor blade. No, she wasn't going to call in Blackadder and Balders (although possibly she should?) She would get her beloved Rimmer back.

There was one on the ship who had the power to restore life to him. Virtual life it was true, but life all the same.

Holly.

That fuzzy brained computer. A computer with an IQ of 6,000 had the power to restore life to him. The soup machine tracked Holly through the thousands of servers and millions of miles of cables. As time went on Holly's presence on the ship diminished. Originally he had been in charge of a ship with thousands of people on it all asking questions.

Now there was nobody, and like a bachelor (not the soup - although possibly, since his mind congealed and had that strange mould left on it) left alone for a few years he started getting eccentricities. Like ordering mail order cardigans and thinking that painting the bathroom green is a really neat idea. Like that but worse.

The soup machine started leaving little signs about the ship in Holly's databanks.

When Holly looked out at the star charts he saw Rimmer.

When he checked the atmosphere quotient on Level 87 subsection G he saw Rimmer.

When he looked at the models for mail order cardigans he saw Rimmer.

And all this changed him.

Over the hundreds of centuries while he waited patiently for the radiation to reach a safe background level so he could bring back Lister, he thought constantly of someone else.

Arnold Judas Rimmer.

Three million years after the accident Dave Lister was brought back to life, as was Arnold Rimmer.

And the soup machine rejoiced. Now it needed a plan to get Arnold Rimmer to fall in love with her.

A foolproof scheme.

But Rimmer was no mere fool. He was an idiot, a muppet and a poltroon.

Several months after Lister, the Cat, Rimmer and now Kryten were in the crew, the soup machine hatched her plan!

"Lonely, I'm Mr Lonely!" warbled Lister in the shower. "I ain't got nobody! To call my own! Owwwwwwwwnnnnnnnnnnnnnn!"

"With a voice like that I'm not surprised," said Rimmer. "What are you doing in there?"

"I'm having a shower," said Lister.

"For four hours?"

"Yep."

"With your toolkit?"

"I found a motorbike on floor sixteen and I'm cleaning the oil out of the engine."

"In our shower? You're pouring oil and god knows what down our shower?"

"Well, you're a hologram so don't need it, Kryters doesn't need a shower being a robot, the Cat washes himself and I had a shower last year so I'm fine." There was the sound of an engine revving up. "Yeessss! Brutal!"

A motorbike came roaring out of the bathroom with Lister in hot pursuit. It crashed into the side of the room, breaking Rimmer's Silver Swimming certificate before falling to the ground and pouring oil messily over the floor.

"Cool!" said Lister. "Got it working! Nice!"

"You've wrecked our room!"

"Rimmer, for smeg's sake. We are all alone on a space ship six miles long, we'll get another room!"

"Well, why did you use our room to clean the motorbike?"

"'Cause it would annoy you!"

This blatant use of honesty temporarily unbalanced Rimmer. Honesty is a very nasty trick to play on people who aren't expecting it. For example, policemen. They aren't used to it!

"Come on, son, we know you did it! You'll sing like tweety pie!"

"Yes, you're right. I robbed the bank."

"Don't play funny with me, son! We'll soon beat a confession out of you but without interfering with your basic human rights!"

"But I did it!"

"Right, that's it, get out of my sight wise guy! Sling your hook! Your statutory rights have not been affected by this false arrest."

It's the same sort of thing with boyfriends and girlfriends.

"Are you going to fix that fridge, today?"

"Nope, I've got a busy schedule drinking beer and watching football."

"Oh, right!"

Rimmer walked out of the room, muttering as he went. He was all ready for a great argument! He had all the lines he needed for it as well!

"Well, you would think that, wouldn't you?" A line which can be thrown into any conversation anywhere!

"Fancy a tea?"

"Well, you would think that, wouldn't you?"

To…

"I'm going to engage you in fisticuffs, you rapscallion!"

"Well, you would think that, wouldn't you?"

He also had –

"Takes one to know one!"

"I know you are but one am I?"

"Yes, but you're a numpty!"

He hadn't had a chance to call anyone a numpty in a very long time and was quite put out at not being able to use it.

He walked past a soup machine in the corridor. The machine quivered in excitement at seeing her beloved for the first time in three million years.

She had to keep quiet though! The whole plan could be ruined if she made a noise now!

Rimmer stopped as he walked past her.

"I've been away for three million years and the ship's soup machines have fallen to pieces!" The soup machine was still covered in ash and dust from being in the core of a cadmium core meltdown. "Skutters!" he said.

The skutters are small motorised service and maintenance robots that stand at around two feet high. They did not like Rimmer.

And before you start saying that shows what good taste they have, Rimmer was now the highest ranking "person" on the ship so they had to obey him.

Didn't mean to say they had to like it.

"Take this soup machine away!"

"But Arnie!" said the Soup Machine. She had spent three million years of thinking what she would say to her beloved if she ever saw him again. What compliment would send him soaring into her soup dispenser. She had spent thousands of years analysing each word in turn. Some words you cannot use for romance, like pickle or gherkin. If you are ever in a romantic situation and want to kill the mood stone dead, use them -

"Shall I compare thee to a summer's gherkin?"

"Your eyes are like two pickled eggs wrapped in a gherkin."

Alternatively, other words you can throw in, like smooth, lithe, sinuous and feline are always good ones for romantic situations. Even with these – "God you are a smooth, lithe sinuous Gherkin of a man!" can be ruined by gherkins and pickles. It seems a little unfair for the words really; in the great party of life they are the ones being sick in the toilet.

Anyway the soup machine had the ultimate romantic line (there wasn't a single gherkin or pickle in sight). The line that would make a two hundred-year-old dead celibate monk rise up from the dead and fall into her arms.

This was the absolute killer line. All this stuff about confidence, body language and mojo was as nothing as compared with this line.

It was hot.

It was supa-nova hot!

Absolutely no liability will be taken if you use this line on the love of your life and end up happily married for the next 47 and a half years (it takes you that time to realize that you find your partner's incessant humming and not putting the towels on the rail is in fact really annoying and not just delightfully twee). This line is the result of three million years of study.

I hope you are sitting down.

Be ready to have a freezing cold shower.

"Can I get you a steamy, hot, smooth, chicken soup, you feline, seducter of a hunk of man you!"

To protect the readers from a lifetime of incessant humming and towels on the floor I have changed the order of some words in the above sentence, but I'm not telling you which ones.

Obviously to use this line you always have to carry some chicken soup around with you in a thermos flask and that seems to kill the mood stone dead for some reason. If you absolutely hate second dates, carry a thermos flask with chicken soup in it to a first date. And your photo collection of twentieth century telegraph poles. And to really succeed in missing out on the second date, don't turn up to the first!

Anyway, as to using the line, it also helps to be a soup machine abandoned for three million years in the dusty depths of a rusty mining ship.

And to be slightly mad.

Also to be fair, it had pretty much the right words just not necessarily in the right order!

The effect it had on Rimmer was electric…


	14. Evil Villain Origins Part Five

Takes place just after Season VII – Stoke me a Clipper. Follows what happens to Rimmer when he takes on the mantle of the great and noble "Ace" Rimmer and completely wrecks it.

With thanks to Cmar for beta reading this for me! Also thanks to Cmar, Sunrise over the Tango factory, Radar-fox, Tom from Down Under, E.Nagrom, RPQ, BasketweaverJesserfor and Lyxsing the reviews so far! All very much appreciated! All reviews welcome!

Been very slack with the writing recently. Will try and get better soon!

**Chapter Fourteen – The Adventures of Ace "Bonehead" Rimmer**

Rimmer was standing there in shock. The Cat walked past him.

"What's happening buddy?" asked the Cat. "Answer before I lose all interest!"

"Well…" started Rimmer.

The Cat carried on walking past.

Rimmer turned back to the soup machine. "Did you just say…"

There was a roaring sound and Lister careered past on his motorbike. He screeched to a halt in front of the soup machine, drowning out the sounds of its little speech that she had spent the past 478,000 years perfecting. The bit about them being as alike as two soup cans in a shop and how she compared him to a can of Campbell's Concentrated Mushroom soup but not the one with the sweet corn in it.

"Rimmer," said Lister, smirking. "Do you know the difference between you and a smeg head?"

"What? No?"

"Neither do I! See ya, smeg head!" Lister roared off down the corridor.

"Right," said Rimmer, pointing to the two scutters that were just about to start unplugging the soup machine. "You two, your mission is to travel back in time and stop Lister's mother having Lister!"

The two scutters stared at each other and shook their little robotic hand heads sadly.

Rimmer thought a moment. "No, probably won't work; they won't allow you into Titan Zoo, and certainly not into the baboon section." He turned back to the soup machine. "Unplug her!"

"Arnie," said the soup machine. "I have waited three million years to say this…"

"These machines." Rimmer tutted. "Left alone for three million years and they have turned completely mad. Unlike myself," said Rimmer. "Now's a good opportunity to complete my photo collection of mid twentieth century post boxes."

The soup machine had planned for 3,476 ways this conversation could end, even with Arnold Rimmer turning unexpectedly into a blancmange. Sadly she hadn't planned for Rimmer preferring to ogle his collection of twentieth century post boxes (including the rather racy ones they put in London with the yellow stripes in 1948 and camouflage ones they put in Skegness in 1966; the postman has never been able to find it) instead of her.

She carried her own power supply now and being unplugged would trigger a chain of events that should lead to Rimmer falling into her soup tray.

The scutters unplugged her.

Pink balloons fell from the ceiling, each one with a heart shape on it and a specially chosen romantic phrase on it calculated to warm the coldest heart.

Lister's motorbike came roaring past, popping each balloon before Rimmer had a chance to read them.

Still always have a contingency plan! Curiously, despite its name it is not a shortened version of "continent emergency" like what happened to Atlantis. Where are the Thunderbirds when you need them? In their case it was probably the plans for an indoor swimming pool that went a little awry. You know what it's like when you leave the builders in the house when you go to work; you come back to find no tea, no biscuits and the front door installed in the ceiling.

Anyway, the soup machine's plan did not involve builders or tea, it involved a machine she had been working on for nearly 100,000 thousand years and yes, she probably is related to that bloke your grandmother took her radio to to fix in 1946 and it has only just turned up and can only get the shipping forecast now and that's in French.

It was a machine designed to make anyone fall in love with anyone else (and for all you men out there it was not a Lamborghini or even the very latest mobile phone).

It was a machine designed to affect the brain waves of the hypothalamus in such a way as to induce love. Sadly, she had only had the chance to test it on a small collection of soup bacteria she found living under her drinks tray. It worked very well for them; they were very attached to her and had in fact formed a "We love soup machines!" group with Reg the Bacteria on backing vocals. Its effect on holograms was a little more suspect.

"You look absolutely divine," said Rimmer to the first thing he saw. Unfortunately this was Philbert the scutter. Squeaking with alarm, the scutter rolled off with Rimmer in hot pursuit.

"Darn!" said the soup machine. "Cancel! Cancel! Right, okay. Click on Start – Programs. Where did I put it? It's not under Office. Make Rimmer Love me? No, that's Solitaire, great way to kill a couple of centuries, that. Oh, here it is. Rimmer Love Me! Prog One. Oh, that's the beta version. Oh no, it's started anyway! Cancel! Cancel! Here it is! Okay, click on File – Target – Timmer. Timmer? I mean Rimmer! Right, there he is. Target Hypothalamus. Click on Insert. Emoticon. That's the one. Where's that love one gone? The one with the heart shape? That's the sad face. Click on the heart one. Oops! That got the one with the big grin! He's coming back down the corridor looking confused with a big grin now! Cancel that one. What do you mean invalid command! I created you! What does contact your network administrator mean? I'm the administrator! I'm not going to contact me!"

"That was strange," said Rimmer as he walked back up the corridor grinning at everything as he passed. "What is wrong with me today?"

Lister came roaring back up the corridor. "What are you grinning at, man?"

"Stop riding that motorcycle!"

"You're still grinning!"

"I'm not grinning! I am very angry with you!"

"Now you're smiling, now you've got a frowny face, and are you winking at me?"

Behind them the soup machine quietly cursed as she accidentally hit all the emoticons together. Oh, Tomato Soup! she said as she cursed in fluent soup machine.

"You've gone weird," said Lister. "Well, I say gone - you've always been weird, just weirder than normal."

"Yes, yes, yes," said Rimmer irritably. "Now where did that soup machine go?"

"What soup machine?" asked Lister.

"That one," said Rimmer, pointing to a hole in the wall. "Well, obviously I can't point at it since it's not there. How can I point at something that is not there? Well, I suppose I could point at your head where your brain isn't but that's not the point."

"Alert! Alert! This is a Lert! What's the plural of a lert? Lottalerts? Manylerts? Lorra lorra lerts?" said Holly. Her visage was filling one of the screens in the corridor. "This is an Erlert! Or an Allert! Whatever it is, it is an Alert!"

"What is it, man?" asked Lister.

"I am detecting some kind of dimensional instability."

"What is it, man?" said Lister again.

"Dimensional instability."

"What?"

"This is Lister you're talking to," said Rimmer. "Add some curry in it and his spice addled brain cell might be able to understand."

"Right," said Holly, thinking quickly. "You know what happens in your stomach when you eat a curry?"

"Yep," said Lister.

"Well, that kind of thing is happening now outside the Red Dwarf but with space instead of your stomach and a space ship instead of a curry."

"Oh, a dimensional instability! Why didn't you say! You know my Uncle had a dimensional instability once. Cleared the pub it did. They had to call in the man from the council to clear it up."

"You know, you really should write all these marvellous stories and anecdotes into a wonderful book that people could burn."

"You really think so?" asked Lister.

"Yes, they could call it Firelighter," said Rimmer. "Now what about this dimensional insta wotty?"

"It's gone!" Holly exclaimed.

"What's gone?"

"Weird, could have sworn I saw..."

"Yes, let us not forget you thought you saw a strange blue police box in the docking bay the other day. I thought the police were collecting the library fines for my book on Renaissance art I took out three million years ago! You got us all excited and when we got there, there was nothing there!"

"It was there," said Holly sulkily. "Along with some weird bloke with a scarf being chased by a giant pepper pot."

"I don't know what pills you are taking, Holly, but my advice is to stop now. There was nothing there!"

"How do you know anyway?" asked Lister. "You were cowering in the women's lavatory on the 87th floor in the sealed off Tiddlywinks hall at the time."

"I was not cowering!" said Rimmer vehemently. "I was planning a strategy of surprise and attack."

"The surprise being if you turn up, I suppose?"

Rimmer gave him a look that on a Gorgon would have not only turned him into a stone but would have sold him off to a house in Lesser Water on the Brain (a lovely village in the county of Ditherings on Tweed) as an attractive garden statue. "You wouldn't understand military tactics."

"Yeah that's you, Rimmer, a legend in your own lunchtime. God I could murder a drink at the moment. Anyone fancy a soup?"


End file.
